Psychology Today | 08.09.2026 03:43
I have recently reread two of Dickens' best books: Great Expectations and Bleak House. Both are brilliant books about wanting the wrong things from life, or hunting what we want in the wrong places. In "Great Expectations," Pip, the hero or the antihero, believes Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who is disappointed in love, has bestowed a fortune on him; and in "Bleak House," Richard, the Jarndyce ward, bankrupts himself and his wife Ada and ultimately destroys himself in his efforts to win an endless and futile legal case. Pip learns that the money he believed came from Miss Havisham was really from a convict whom he had helped in his youth, and Richard ends up in debt and ultimately destroyed by his futile efforts to win the case. Pip, in his fruitless search to be a fine gentleman, leaves behind the people who really love him: Joe Gargery and Biddy. And Richard spurns the good Mr Jarndyce, who supports him and only wants the best for him in life.
