Charles Dickens's 'Great Expectations': a defense of the second ending.

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From: Studies in the Novel
Date: 19930322
Author:Meckier, Jerome

Charles Dickens's second ending for his novel 'Great Expectations,' in which Pip and Estella meet unexpectedly the day after Pip's return rather than two years after as in the first ending, is more appropriate than George Bernard Shaw and other critics have thought. The second ending contains an ambiguity that is truer to real life than most Victorian fiction. Moreover, the second ending reinforces Pip's realization that expectations are undependable.

The notion persists that George Bernard Shaw persuasively championed the original ending for Great Expectations. Enlarging upon his often ...

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