Expectations and Memory

by

Andi Miller

Thirteen years ago I read a classic novel that represents a turning point in my literary life. My ninth grade Honors English class read Great Expectations aloud from a textbook, each of us calling on one another when we’d finished a section, trying to spread the misery around evenly to our friends and enemies. I abhorred the experience. I didn’t read the assigned chapters for homework, I didn’t enjoy the language or the plot twists. In fact, the only enjoyable memory associated with that particular literary escapade is a sense of relief as we turned the last page.  

Despite the torture of sitting in a classroom of my uninterested peers leaping through my first Dickens novel, somehow in my later life I considered the book a “favorite.” An “all time favorite,” in fact. I’m not sure how it happened—if it was the liberating rush of finishing my first really difficult read or if it was the enigmatic characters that somehow lodged in my brain. For it is Estella and Miss Havisham, the literary bad girls, who have continually waved to me from across the distance of years.

Sadly, I would venture to say that I forgot 98.7 percent of Dickens’s minutia since that time, and Great Expectations is certainly full of minutia. It’s a tragic thing, really, to have the memory of a ladybug. Alas, it’s my lot in life and I’ve taken the appropriate steps to restore some of Dickens’s wonderful details to my addled brain. I picked it up in January for a rare re-read. I’m usually too focused on the teetering stacks of unread books in every corner of my house to pick up a book I’ve already read. But I thought Dickens deserved another chance, especially since I’ve talked Great Expectations up to so many people since ninth grade.

The years and my half-time memory have been kinder to Estella than she really deserves. She shows up in my usernames, leaps into my head when I’m irked at the males in my life, and she certainly inspires some snarky retorts. However, until about a week ago I’d forgotten that Miss Havisham adopted her, the fact that her hair is brown (very unlike Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1998 film version), and that she appears very little in the novel. If you’d asked my memories a percentage—a figure to represent how much time Estella takes up in the novel—I might’ve enthusiastically replied, “50 percent! And she deserved more!”  Realistically, the number is something far closer to 20 or 30 percent, the rest of her time having been spent wisely at being enigmatic and torturing young master Pip. She’s quite the wench. But I still like her somehow.

Miss Havisham, on the other hand, has remained a caricature in my head lacking the truly nutty details—the disintegrating wedding gown, vile mash of cake and insects, and her unpleasant demise (it involved flaming hair and we’ll leave it at that). Upon re-reading it is Miss Havisham that will probably live, vivid and sharp, in my mind from now until the next reread. It’s amazing how the passing of time can dramatically change the details we remember and how we remember them.

As I held the book in my hands this time trying to remember the experience of reading it the first time around, I basked in the details. Making me read classics in school was something akin to the rodeo. Lots of roping and tying of appendages. However, this time I found it enriching. That’s not to say there wasn’t a slow drag in the middle—there was—but it was certainly worth enduring and helped immerse me in the London of Dickens’s creation. At this age, I feel that I can now truly call Great Expectations an all-time favorite, for I was much more willing to internalize the details and will hold them closer, draw them up more often. If you haven’t yet read it, I call on you to read next.


Andi is a recovering university academic employed by the North Carolina community college system as an English instructor. While she decided to forego a Ph.D. and career as a professor, she fills in all the free time her current position affords her with editing literary publications, reviewing, freelancing, and blogging like a madwoman. Her work can be found in the journal, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), and Altar Magazine as well as online in various venues such as PopMatters.com. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), and writes fiction, the literary merits of which are questionable at this point in time. Her turn-ons include brand new books and gelato, while her turn-offs would be reality television and washing dishes. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it