Thoughts on Reading

   Over all I enjoyed reading Great Expectations.  Once I had finished it gave me a feeling of accomplishment and ease.  Reading did turn out to be a bit of a stress on all of my other work though, finding the time to read and annotate usually led to late nights of sitting in my bed with my lonesome self trying to stay awake to finish the last few chapters and find some piece of information worthy of one of my awesome sticky notes.  I felt good knowing that I didn't need any help solving any of the mysteries from spark notes or people who had read the book before.  In the end I think I enjoyed Dickens style of writing and may try some of his other novels.

   My nightly reading would usually consist of finishing all of my other extremely boring homework while trying to procrastinate and distract myself from doing any form of work.  After this was done I would go and get a snack, change into my pajamas, climb into bed and start my reading.  Usually I was mostly caught up so I only had about twenty pages to read.  Those pages sometimes seemed like the longest I had ever read at times.  Eventually I would finish though at around 10:00 and at this point I could rest my tired eyes and get ready to do it all over again the next day.

   Boy...I cannot wait for Romeo and Juliet.

Connected Photo

I felt that this photo really connects to GReat Expectations because in the novel there really isn't anything that Pip cannot do.  This was the Album cover for U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon.  I feel that this is vaery symbolic and has a lot of meaning in it.

Making connections

I think that Great Expectations and To Kill a Mockingbird are very much alike.  Through the main characters real life experiences are shown and true human nature is exposed such as judgement and fear of the unknown.  Both authors convey that people are imperfect, but that you should not judge them for their views or how they choose to live.
Both Pip and Scout go through many challenges.  Pip does not know how to use his money or how to treat ohers like a gentleman. Scout doesn't know how to treat African-Americans.

The Second Stage

   During the second stage in Great Expectations, Pip travels to London where he meets his new roomate Herbert Pocket who turns out to be the pale young gentleman that Pip fought years ago in Mrs. Havisham's garden.  This man teaches Pip how to become a gentleman.
   One of the main motifs in this part of the book is becoming a gentleman.  When Pip first meets Herbert he asks Herbert to tell him if he uses any impolite manners.  Herbert teaches him what it means to be a gentleman.

My Chain

   He is referring to the moment he entered the gate at Miss Havisham's house. That was the moment that he met Estelle which started a long chain of events that leads him to where he is now.  Because of this he realizes just how 'coarse and common' he is. This makes him feel ashamed of who he is.  In the following chapters Pip becomes resentful of how poor his family is and starts to realize that maybe he doesn't want to be a common blacksmith like Joe.  He becomes extremely self concious and at the end of the night after he is apprenticed to Joe, he thinks to himslef that just maybe he won't have any fun now.
   The first link in my chain was my first day on a real swim team.  I started to realize my dream of becoming a real swimmer.  To this day I have never had regrets about that decision.  That day led to me making varsity on our high school team and meeting a whole new group of people who were just like me.  I would never have met some of the people who will now be life long friends.

My Question

What I really want to know about is how Pip's convict was able to give another man the file that Pip had given him.  Would The file have been confiscated when he was locked away again?  If he had the file, why didn't he just break out again!?!  I'm confused by this.