Mister+Pip


 * Thursday 17th May update:** If you haven't finished the book, finish it! Some interesting revelations about Mr. Watts have recently been found out - what do you think of him now? Check out our 'theme' sections for information on the three themes/ideas we have been looking at!

Sorry I've been sick, girls. Starting to feel a bit better now though so will hopefully be in on Thursday. The work for Wednesday, Period 6 relates to pages 73-100. Homework tonight is to read to p.120. We will discuss the answers to these questions in class tomorrow. If you work well - AND YOUR RELIEF TEACHER AGREES THAT YOU HAVE WORKED WELL - you can have cake (if somebody baked some) at 3:10.
 * 1) Why is Matilda unsatisfied with the ending of //Great Expectations//? (pp.79-80)
 * 2) What animal does Mr. Watts compare himself with on p.81? Why do you think this is significant?
 * 3) Why do you think the villagers had 'willed' the horrible experience of the Redskins coming? (p.82)
 * 4) Why is Dolores studying 'an injury only she could see' (p.90)? Why is this quite a funny moment?
 * 5) How is the 'head' soldier made out to be a character we (somewhat) sympathise with? (p.90)
 * 6) More similarities appear between Dolores and Miss Havisham - write on her character page some quotes from p.96.
 * 7) (Hard - discuss if you like) Who is Dolores warning the children about when she tells them the story about the devil lady and the church money? How does this story justify her actions regarding the book and the redskins? Do you agree with Dolores’s refusal to bring forth the book? With Matilda’s?

If you finish early, read on! Thanks, Mr. Blandford.

Food for thought: Mr Watts says, on p.18: "When you read the work of a great writer', he told us, 'you are making the acquaintance of that person. So you can say you have met Mr. Dickens on the page, so to speak. But you don't know him yet.'

This is quite similar to what Holden Caulfield says in //The Catcher in the Rye; "//What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. I wouldn't mind calling this Isak Dinesen up. And Ring Lardner, except that D.B. told me he's dead. You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know, he just isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, that's all. I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye"

Do you feel like you //know// the authors of any books you have read, simply through your connection with the novel? Is this the mark of a good book?