Great Expectations: Context & Background
This programme delves into the who, what, when, where and why of Great Expectations. Locate Charles Dickens’ masterpiece in its historical context and learn about the real-life events that prompted him to pen this beloved bildungsroman. The hero, Pip, is presented against the detailed backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and the age of the ‘self-made man.’
SOURCE: Clickview (2016), Rated: E, Duration: 8:01 mins, URL: https://clickv.ie/w/V19o
Dickens' Writing Style: Great Expectations
This programme offers insights into the stylistic devices employed by Dickens to great effect in the novel Great Expectations. Learn more about the characteristics and writing style that have contributed to the perennial popularity of this work, including the author’s use of specific literary techniques and his highly memorable characters; some quite familiar and some very strange.
SOURCE: Clickview (2016), Rated E, Duration: 6:52 mins, URL: https://clickv.ie/w/Q19o
Great Expectations - The Secret Life of Books
Tony Jordan brings his writer's insight to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.
SOURCE: Foxtel arts (2016), from ClickView, Rated: G, [29:15 mins], URL: https://clickv.ie/w/X1Cp
The Gothic In Great Expectations
Professor John Bowen explores the gothic elements of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Analysing the book’s use time and the past, repetition, violence, sexuality, identity, psychological tension and doubles, Professor Bowen provides new insights into the novel as work of Victorian gothic fiction.
SOURCE: The British Library (2014), posted on YouTube, [7:14 mins] URL: https://youtu.be/JPsrftBhmmA
Why should you read Charles Dickens?
The starving orphan seeking a second helping of gruel. The spinster wasting away in her tattered wedding dress. The stone-hearted miser plagued by the ghost of Christmas past. More than a century after his death, these remain recognizable figures from the work of Charles Dickens. But what are the features of Dickens’ writing that make it so special? Iseult Gillespie investigates. [View full lesson on TedEd.]
SOURCE: Iseult Gillespie (2017), published on Youtube, Duration: 5:16 mins, URL: https://youtu.be/5czA_L_eOp4
What Makes Great Expectations a Classic? [Rated G, 3:10 mins]
First published in 1861, Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations' is a novel about crime, guilt, and social aspiration.
SOURCE: Makematic (2022), What Makes Great Expectations a Classic? [Video] ClickView.
WASLA Teacher Librarian of the Year- 2017: Jo-Anne Urquhart
- 2016: Lise Legg