Mister Pip Discussion Topics

Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg

Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Hauptseminar: From Dickens to NeoDickens

Wintersemester 2012/2013

Dozentin: PD Dr. Susanne Gruß

Referent: Sebastian-Manuel Schmidt

28. November 2012

Mister Pip

Course activities

* Discussion topics:

If your child attended Mr. Watts's class and you were asked to teach something what would it be and why?

* Teamwork tasks:

It has been said that it is impossible for a white man to take on the voice of black girl. Do you agree? Is Mister Pip still postcolonial?

Matilda's return to London: What did she learn about Dickens? What did change between the image she had of Dickens when she was on the island and now?

What does Matilda's mother Dolores think about Mr. Dickens and Great Expectations? Compare her view to the one of her daughter.

* Final Debate

'Stories have a job to do! They have to teach you something.'. What does Matilda learn from the narration of Great Expectations?

Recap 11/21/12

1. recap of last session

* Dickens's children: romanticism of childhood in Great Expectations? → Pip as an innocent child undergoing a development → sinfulness, impurity, loss of innocence

romantic notion more prominent in Oliver Twist

* Dickens's personal biography and his characters: personal experiences (work house theme/exploitation) → criticism of childhood labor

cf. David Copperfield includes autobiographical fragments

2. Dickens's women

* Estella: fairy tale idea ('princess character' cf. p. 289 NCE) → 'ice maiden, monster, real person?'

* Petrarch: affection poems to Laura (dulce malum)

image of a star: beautiful to behold but unreachable → immortalization of beauty cf. Shakespeare's sonnets

in Great Expectations: duplication of Petrarcian notion

cf. Estella as someone who cannot perceive love

Estella as a guiding star

in contrast: objective of admiration is passive: Estella is different → she...