WHAT'S THE STORY?

Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations to teach the audience that dreams are bittersweet.  Achieving goals can be sweet from the achievement but disappointing when you achieve the dream itself, whether it is getting accepted to a college or becoming wealthy.  We often will idealize the things we want, building them up beyond their practical worth or enjoyment.  For Pip, becoming a gentleman so that he could be worthy enough to marry Estella was his main purpose after he met Miss Haversham and Estella for the first time.  The tone of the novel, which seems nostalgic and reflective, in the beginning slightly foreshadows dismal prospects for his dreams with quotes like "Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."  It is the negative connotation of the word "bound" in this comment by the narrator, or Pip, that hints a constricting dream or thought that will not be beneficial for the dreamer.  In breaking the fourth wall with that quote, Charles Dickens also has Pip as the narrator admit to the reader that the story they are reading is a reflection by Pip on his life, once again supporting the tone, which exemplifies Dickens' purpose to warn against the enticing dream of wealth because it can corrupt.