|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 ![The Archive Database [imagemap with 4 links]](../images/a_intrnl_archive.gif) |
Program Title
Credits Executive Producer: Rebecca Eaton, Michael Wearing Producer: David Snodin Director: Julian Jarrold Intro GREAT EXPECTATIONS/Episode 2/Intro by Russell Baker Tonight we continue our story about the poor orphan boy, Pip, whose world is suddenly turned upside-down when a mysterious benefactor decides to make him rich. To prepare Pip for life as a gentleman, this benefactor has had him sent to London for educating and polishing. The effect on Pip's character has not been salutary. Moving in fancier circles than he ever dreamed of, he has grown up snobbish, selfish and wasteful. Worst of all, he is now ashamed of his sweet brother-in-law, Joe Gargery, the blacksmith who has been his closest friend from childhood. Last time we saw Pip as a terrified child steal food for an escaped convict. This has left him with a lifelong sense of criminal guilt. Now, however, as a grown man with money to waste, he is still in the dark about who plans to make him rich. He suspects it's Miss Havisham, who, years ago, was abandoned on her wedding day, and has never recovered from the shock. Since that day, she has kept everything in her house precisely as it was. The table is still set with the dusty, decayed wedding feast. She still wears her bridal gown. She is half-mad with hatred for all men. Into this eerie household Miss Havisham has brought Estella -- a girl of Pip's age, and Pip has loved her from childhood. In return, she treats him with contempt. Miss Havisham has sent Estella abroad to be prepared for a career as a lady and enchanter of men. Last time we saw Pip calling at Miss Havisham's. Estella appeared, stunningly beautiful. "Love her," Miss Havisham told Pip. "Love her." Concluding episode, "Great Expectations." Extro GREAT EXPECTATIONS/Episode 2/Extro by Russell Baker If the ending of our story seems ambiguous to you, it's because Dickens wanted it that way. He wrote two endings to "Great Expectations." In the first, Estella has married for the second time and is no longer the great beauty. She and Pip meet and have a quiet conversation that makes it clear that Pip may still love her, but is now satisfied with his new life. And they part forever. A writer friend of Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, objected. The public, he said, would want a conventional happy ending in which Pip and Estella married and lived happily ever after. This would certainly have been a more typical Dickens ending. In his other novels, his heroes always got the girl at the end and almost always got riches enough to support her without having to work. Dickens was willing to revise in order to avoid an unhappy ending, but he refused to go all the way. His solution was to write a new ending, and make it so ambiguous that, as a reader, you could decide for yourself whether they would part forever or continue to see each other. This is essentially what we saw tonight. As Dickens scholars have noted, the conventional happy ending would have violated the logic of the story -- which was that the monstrous Miss Havisham had deliberately made Estella a woman incapable of loving anyone. For Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, I'm Russell Baker. Goodnight.  Episode number: 1 2
 The Archive Database | Program History | Poster Gallery | Awards  Home | About The Series | The American Collection | The Archive Schedule & Season | Feature Library | eNewsletter | Book Club Learning Resources | Forum | Search | Shop | Feedback
© |
|
 |
|
