Character Creation

Pip arrives at Mr. Pocket's house and sees an angry man leaving. He begins to approach him and a conversation ensues. This conversation is rather short:

Samuel is exasperated and leaving and slams the door: " And who are you, youngster?"

"I am Pip I'm moving into to live here"

"Ah so you are the reason I am being kicked out!"

"Am I? well I can't see how this is my fault"

"Well if you haven't come here I would not be leaving would I?"

"But I need to come here to London and if that gets you evicted then tough on you I need this."

" You nasty little youngster! You should have stayed in whatever rundown town you used to live in!"

Mr. Pocket comes outsisde, seeing the argument tells Samuel to leave.

"I'm so sorry Pip thats just a bitter old man" and he told him Samuel's story.

Samuel used to live at Mr. Pocket's house. Now that Pip came Mr. Pocket had to kick him out because there wasnt enough room for him. Samuel is not a gentleman. He is not pleasant to have around. He is not very successful. People do not want to be around him. His reputation is very bad, because he always speaks his mind and has bad manners. He does not respect most people and is always telling people that they are living a pointless life that has no future. For this reason people mostly avoid him and tell others to avoid him too. In reality he has a mental disorder and does not have full control of what he tell people. He is not a tall or fat or attractive man and does not dress in clean and tidy clothes. Mr. Mucklebanks has a weird quality, he never makes eye contact when he talks to people. He is never looking at the speaker but instead looks at everything but the speaker. Mr. Pocket feels sorry for him, but on the other hand he is relieved to get this burden off his shoulder. Samuel never payed much for staying there and people would always avoid being around him and would not come to his house as often.

Creating a Dickensian character

I was making my way through a particularly crowded part of town. As I kept walking, I realized that I didn’t recognize any of my surroundings – I must have made a wrong turn somewhere. As I tried to retrace my steps, I felt a tug on my coat.

“Please, spare an old man some change,” a voice rasped somewhere to my right.

I turned around and saw an old man who was anything but a gentleman. His face was tired, like he hadn’t slept for a thousand years, and he had very dirty, worn out clothing. I was disgusted yet sad at the same time. This beggar reminded me somewhat of my old life.

I inquired his name, which he told me was ‘William’ however, there was no last name. This old man explained to me that I was the first person to ever stop and speak with him. He went on to say that he was a beggar because he had lost all his money and his home so he had no choice.

This strange man kept on talking to me and I felt rather ridiculous listening to him tell me his life story. It must have been at least ten minutes.

When the beggar finally stopped speaking, I reached into my pocket and dropped a coin into the small bowl he was holding. I felt like I could relate to him, in a way.

I turned and went on my way. When I finally retraced my steps back to the main street, I found the proper route to my destination. However, I couldn't stop thinking about the beggar's smile when I gave him the coin.

- Alison

Comparison of two film versions of Great Expectations

There are many differences between the two adaptations of Great Expectations. The second version starts off with a dramatic chase scene, whereas the first version starts off with the scene where the convict is strangling Pip. The convict doesn’t show up in the second adaptation, and instead is first shown in a flashback. Also, Mrs. Joe is portrayed as more angry towards Pip when he returns home from the churchyard in the second adaptation compared to the first one. Another clear difference between the two adaptations is that the second one includes more scenes than the first adaptation, such as the Christmas dinner with Mr. Pumblechook. The scene where Pip was hiding food from his house for the convict also varied between the two adaptations. In the first one, Pip hid the food in his pocket, which contrasts from the book where he hides it in his pants. In the second version, Pip sneaks out in the morning to take the food instead of taking it during dinner. One similarity that I noticed was that in both film versions, Joe refers to Pip as ‘old chap.’ The first adaptation followed the storyline of the book more closely, in terms of the sequence of events but the second adaptation changed the sequence of events to make a more the film more dramatic.

The two film versions of the book have influenced my understanding of book by helping me picture the events more clearly. This is especially true for the scene where Pip returns home and Mrs. Joe is scolding him. Even though one version of the film portrayed a more violent Mrs. Joe, it showed clearly how Mrs. Joe had brought up Pip by hand.

Alison Wong.

G-R Goldwater: Comparing/Contrasting Exercise

COMPARING THE TWO FILM VERSIONS

The first adaptation starts off with the convict strangling pip and throwing him on the ground, and stays mostly true to the script. The second adaptation skips that part entirely, and shows Pip at home, then after that it goes to the point where Pip meets the convict for the first time. The scene where the other convict attacks Pip in the first adaptation is downplayed a lot, Pip walks up to him and the convict takes a swing, then runs away. In the second adaptation, that scene is left out entirely. In the first adaptation, the scene where the guests come over is omitted (or just not shown in the parts we watched), whereas the second adaptation shows this scene in detail, emphasizing Pumblechook’s gluttony, and staying mostly true to the book’s script. Neither adaptation mutilates the story overly, and the first keeps the script and storyline almost exactly the same, whereas the second mixed up the scenes from the book’s order. The second one is more dramatic, and makes it feel like a real story more than the other.

HOW THEY WILL/WILL NOT INFLUENCE MY READING

The film versions will not influence my reading of the text, because they [mostly the second one] were not much different than my own imaginings of the story. The first one, I would disregard completely because it was an amateur film that didn’t incorporate any drama, just a re-enacting of the book’s plotline. The second one, although dramatic and making the story seem real, was not that much different than I would have imagined the book as a movie [in my head, that is], and so it will not change the way I see the book’s story as I read it.

English Video Reflection

Part I

First of all, it’s quite obvious that the first version was made by an amateur film group, and as stated in the text in the comment section, it was made for an English assignment. The second one was made by a professional company that*- was serious about making it as realistic and enticing as possible. The second one was much more entertaining, but as all movies are, they twisted the storyline slightly. For example, the movie showed no speech between the convict and Pip until after he comes home, in which the confrontation is shown as a flashback. This makes the story a bit more entertaining, but also isn’t as powerful as the original, since it isn’t the way that Charles Dickens intended it. The first version stuck to the text much more. However, the first one isn’t without its problems too. It doesn’t have as many props as the second one, and thus wasn’t as realistic. Both the directors made an attempt to make the film as interesting as possible, however, as both have at least attempted to say the lines with some expression.

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Part II

Based on the 2nd one, I think my book understanding has changed dramatically. For example, the convict definitely looks like a malevolent person instead of a nice person that he is portrayed as after Pip gives him the food. I feel that this changes the text a lot since this is the first time that Pip sees the kinder side of the convict before he sacrifices himself to save Pip at the face of the soldiers. In the book, I had envisioned Ms Gargery to be more of a frustrated and sadistic person instead of a violent mother in the video. I feel like this changes my understanding of the story since, with this, one can guess later on that maybe it was Joe that attacked Ms. Gargery out of hatred. In the book, it is never presented as such since Joe is very pacifist in the book, but in the movie, he has a more laissez-faire attitude at Ms. Gargery.

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@Dennis He

Film Comparison Great Expectations

Comparing and Contrasting the films

One of the differences between the two films was that the first film did not alter the story line as much as the second film. For example, in the first film, Pip came home to find Joe there waiting for him, just as it is in the book; however, with the second film, Mrs. Joe is already home, and immediately starts yelling and hitting Pip. Mrs. Joe is also more violent in the second version than the first version, where she only pulls Pip's ear. I also feel that the second version switches things up a bit more by using a flashback when Pip is lying in bed; the first version is just told the way it is in the book, event by event. However, even though there are quite a few difference between the two films, they are also quite similar as well. For example, in both the films, Pip is very easily pushed around (by both the convict and Mrs. Joe), and the convict is very violent and abusive.

By watching these two films, I was a reminded of how mean and violent the convict was because I sort of forgot about the convict's behaviour in the first chapter after I read about his noble act of not telling on Pip when he was getting arrested. This gives me a deeper understanding of the convict

-Aishi Jiang