Syllabus for March 4 - 8
WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE IN DIKENSIAN England? How would you characterize life for Victorian Londoners, and how might the possibility of life like that have cast a dire shadow over Pip’s “new life” in London? As we follow Pip in London, remember that he is newly arrived in the middle-class, and he does not have any other safety net beyond the mysterious benefactor.
MONDAY
No class on account of late-start schedule.
HW: You should have read through chapter twenty-five by Tuesday.
TUESDAY
Continuing the documentary, “Victorian Slum House.” We will pick up with children working in the streets, selling watercress for shillings. The Birds face what, for a modern Londoner, is a moral conflict, but for a Victorian dinizen life was a “circle of misery,” a constant battle. How does this reality color your reading of Pip’s experience in London, his friendship with young Pocket, his upperclass peers Drummle and Startop.
HW: Read chapter twenty-six.
WEDNESDAY
Discussion: Who is Drummle, and what does he represent? What does Pip think of him, and—by extension—what does Dickens think of Drummle? What should the reader take away from this dinner at Mr. Jaggers’s house?
HW: Read chapter twenty-seven. How has Pip’s perception of Joe changed? Has Joe, in fact, changed? If so, how so?
THURSDAY
Small group discussion: What is Joe’s advice to Pip? And, by extension, what is Dickens’s comment on Pip’s life? We will also listen to chapter twenty-eight together.
HW: Read chapters twenty-nine.
FRIDAY
IN-class analysis of chapters 30 and 31. I will also continue an in-class book check on annotations.
HW: Read chapterrs thirty-two and thirty-three.