Discuss Great Expectations as a classic 'bildungsroman' (a novel about growth and development of the hero). Charles Dickens's Great...

Much like
theof the melancholy Jacques from Shakespeare's As You Like It, known
as "The Seven Ages of Man,"  chronicles in prose, rather than
poetry, the three stages of Pip from somewhat lonely and naive orphan who is made aware that he
is a "common, a mere labouring-boy," who forms a link to his life on a single,
memorable day of "great expectations" to a young gentleman now recklessly foolish,
rejecting his old friend--

All other swindlers upon earth
are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretenses did I cheat myself.

--to that of a man who has reached a maturity of soul,
having weathered failure and loss of friendships, loss of love, and loss of friends in a final
stage of rebirth and re-creation.  Pip apologizes to his friends Joe and Biddy, and returns to
the warmth of the forge.  Joe marries Biddy, and Pip visits.  Then, he meets with Estella,
closing relationship with her. In the final stage, Pip comes full circle and learns
that...