Great Expectations, "A Good Name?"

On 4 October, 1860, Dickens wrote John Forster to announce the second change of plans within a month. In mid-September, he had reported that "a little piece" he was working on, possibly a short paper for The Uncommercial Traveller, was better suited to "a new book" (Forster bk. 9, ch. 3). Now, with Charles Lever's A Day's Ride depressing sales of All the Year Round, he felt compelled to forego "the old 20 numbers" in favor of a weekly serial to save his ailing periodical. Dickens's thirteenth novel began as a paper, then turned from a projected serial of twenty monthly parts into one with thirty-six weekly installments. "The name," Dickens informed Forster "is GREAT EXPECTATIONS. I think a good name?" (1) Dickens titular artistry leaves lots to be desired, even if his major rivals--Eliot, Thackeray, Trollope--were seldom more imaginative. Five of Dickens's novels, one-third of the total, are simply named after the book's protagonist: Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit. Three more, Pickwick Papers, Dombey and Son, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, might as well be called "Pickwick," "Dombey," and "Drood." The Old Curiosity Shop, A Tale of Two Cities, and Bleak House adopt place names for titles. The first and third may also be taken as metaphors for the human condition, curious and grim. The title Hard Times describes industrial conditions at mid-century. It may also connote hardhearted manufacturers and fact-worshipping Benthamites. Our Mutual Friend has a title said to be "unfortunately chosen" (Pierce 460); this popular phrase could mean not just a friend in common but also a common friend. (2) That Dickens liked "GREAT EXPECTATIONS" as a title seems clear from its being the only one offered Forster. For Hard Times, he had asked his friend and advisor to pick from no less than fourteen suggestions. (3) When Dickens told Forster a novel would be necessary instead of a short piece, he stressed that the idea "so opens out before me that I can see the whole of the serial" (Forster bk. 9, ch. 3). Uniquely, Dickens foresaw Great Expectations in its entirety from the outset and hit upon his title straight off. Although he later changed the ending, he was able to write most of the novel without number plans. (4) Presumably, Forster concurred with Dickens's high opinion of "GREAT EXPECTATIONS" as a title. Otherwise, he would have remonstrated. But did he recognize the multiple literary allusion? Could he have sensed that the title would grow increasingly ironic as the story unfolded? Unless he did both, he failed fully to comprehend how much of a "good name" Dickens had concocted. Great Expectations is the only Dickens novel with a multifaceted literary allusion for its title. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress alludes to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, but the alternative is more of a subtitle. Dickens eschewed allusive titles. Perhaps he wished not to appear too literary. If Forster caught the allusions he never said so in the authorized biography. Neither does Edgar Johnson. The latter ends his discussion of Great Expectations by quoting the wrong passage from Paradise Lost--he compares Pip and Estella leaving the "garden of their childhood" with the departure from Eden of Adam and Eve (Johnson, 2: 993-4). (5) Johnson cites Book 12, lines 646-49 without enumerating discrepancies between the two leave-takings: unlike Pip and Estella, whose prospects are indefinite and limited, Adam and Eve are committed to each other permanently. They are encouraged to trust in "Providence [as] their guide" and can "choose / Their place of rest" (Paradise Lost 12, 646-7). In truth, "The world was all before them," as Milton claims without any of the irony redolent in Pip's allusion to this passage. (6) In Chapter 19, en route to London after having made a bad parting from Biddy and Joe, Pip ends the "First Stage" of his "Expectations" by observing, much too optimistically in retrospect, that "the world lay spread before me" (Great Expectations, 125). …