I am terrible at abstracts. There, I have said it. Even when I write something moderately good I cannot create an abstract to fully showcase the work. I try to rebuild the paper in bits and pieces, awkwardly finagling main ideas into phrases. Concepts that took me pages to explain and explore are now cut up and reconfigured. I am terrible at abstracts.

Part of the problem (and honestly I don’t know if this is common practice or not), is that I write my abstracts only after the paper is complete. Maybe if I started writing my abstracts before I had any fully formed ideas it may flow more smoothly. I don’t know. Maybe if I didn’t have anything to chop up to begin with then I wouldn’t feel so bad about the process. That poses a problem too (and again, I am not sure if this is common practice), but when I start writing a paper I never really know where it will go, making it nearly impossible to actually write an abstract. The things I think I will be writing about shift and bend as the paper progresses. If I did write an abstract before the paper, it would most certainly be an abstract of a paper I never wrote.

Tonight I was looking over my Dickens paper for the umpteenth time, mainly because I have to create an abstract for it. And I did. I honestly really like how this paper turned out. But the abstract… meh.

Here is the abstract as it stands. Make what you will of it.

If you happen to like it, well then the paper is just as good. If you hate it, then I promise the actual paper is way better!

Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations employs a most strange form of first person narration; even though Pip, the main character, narrates the novel, he does so from the vantage point of adulthood, looking back upon his youth. Thus there is a clear distinction between Pip, the character, and, for the sake of simplification, the wiser and older Pip. Yet they are still the same person. It must be noted that despite Pip’s attempt to retell the story as he had known it at the time, there is always a shadow of the wiser and older Pip overcast upon the narrative. Young Pip’s life story as it is presented to the reader is mediated through a retrospective lens. As Pip recreates himself from memory, so does he recreate all those who once surrounded him, most importantly Estella. Arguably Anamnesis, the Platonic concept of creation and recreation from memory, is a prevalent theme within character formulation throughout the novel, especially between Estella and Pip, addressing two very important questions: is Great Expectations a bildungsroman that traces Pip’s progress as he is formed by the memory of Estella, or is the image of Estella, as recollected by Pip, simultaneously constructed by him?

Pip’s great expectations, and quest for betterment, which stem from his adulation of Estella, function along the lines of personal elevation, congruent with the progress of the Petrarchan lover. While Pip may not necessarily knowingly subscribe to chastity in his pursuit of Estella, arguably the Petrarchan lover does not willingly relinquish physical love, but rather acquiesces to forgo it in light of the impossibility of his love. The main difference relies on foreknowledge; the Petrarchan lover explores his love fully knowing it will remain unrequited, while Pip, despite having glimpses of truth, never gives up hope. Pip’s journey towards betterment is constantly caked in hope of achieving a union with Estella, and in the end, he achieves this, even if only in ambiguous terms. Once a novel has been read the reader usually regards the entire work through the lens of the ending, attempting to conceptualize all of the events in terms of the final outcome, and piecing them together in such ways as to shape the path for what the reader knows will happen.

The first ending which Dickens originally intended is bittersweet, filled with remorse, but also understanding. After Pip devotes a lifetime to Estella only to be rewarded with unrequited love, he understands his erroneous desires of ever gaining her acceptance, and finally lets go. The second ending, and the one with which most are familiar, is definitely too tidy; even scholars in favor of this ending will concede to this point. Estella’s character can either be seen as the cold hearted, calculating enchantress who refuses to return affection to the bitter end, and will always remain aloof and just out of Pip’s grasp. Or she may be regarded as the result of her upbringing, but a dynamic character who grows within the novel, learning from experience, and willing to be redeemed by Pip through forgiveness and acceptance of love. Regardless of which ending is used, the anguish the idea of Estella has brought Pip all of these years leads to this point, and in either ending Estella’s fascinating spectacle comes to an end.