Matilta's Great......

Tracey Mann
Professor Sexson
English 123
August 7th, 2008
Matilda’s Great Expectations
Matilda had dreams of great expectations. One of her best friends went by the name Pip, even though she had never met him face to face. Matilda knew Pip very well indeed. I think it’s important to know that her life. Even though she was on an island far away from where most of us live. I think she lived some of the same ups and downs people feel everyday. Even though, many of us never had to see a beloved friend and mother eaten by pigs. Everyone has needed a friend before, hoped for change, and felt the pain of a broken heart.
The importance of having a friend is crucial to Matilta. Matilda’s best friend was a while boy from England. Matilda had needed so badly to escape the island where everyone feared the Redskins, as well as the Rambo’s. She needed a safe place to go at night. Matilda says, “As we progressed through the book something happened to me. At some point I felt myself enter the story. I hadn’t been assigned a part-nothing like that; I wasn’t identifiable on the page, but I was there, I was definitely there. I knew that orphaned white kid and that small, fragile place…”(Jones 46-47) To live somewhere where you feel so alone at times your friends are the ones that keep your hopes up at night. Even if those friends are only real to you and a few. I believe that keeps many people going. Girls who have been abused or raped dream of the day someone will love them and treat them right. Boys in the slums dream at night about the basketball games they watch. These boys dream of the day they too could play on the courts of the great. This is a survival tool that Matilda used as well. It is amazing what people will do to stay alive. I once heard from a teacher of mine, keep the story going, stay alive. This is a tool that has been used in Arabian Nights as well as by Mr. Watts. Mr. Watts feared the Rambo’s but gave them one thing he had. The power to tell a story keeps him alive.
The fact that one day everything can change. It is important for Matilta to escape to a place outside the tropical island. That otherwise is beautiful, but is being havocked by war. The fact that in just 21 months Matilta gains a teacher she cares about deeply just to lose him. That in this short time you can lose everything. Her house was burned along with all her and her mother’s belonging. Matilta even lost her mum. The book Great Expectations came to mean everything in to Matilta and I am sure was one of the only things that kept her alive at times. Early in the book this hope shows through foreshowing the change when Matilda says, “In Great Expectations we learned how a life could change without any warning.”(Jones 52) Again this is relevant today to thousands of people that are in Iraq dreaming of leaving behind the everyday life of war. Matilta also hoped for that change, I do not think when she said this that she knew that the change would be horrific at for a while. Matilta gets the biggest change of her life of course when she leaves for Townsville to be with her father. Everything in her life changed except for Great Expectations.
The pain of a broken heart happens to everyone. Everyone has cried before, even if they do not wish to admit it. Matilta experienced a severe case of a broken heart. It was hard for her to think or care about anything. It seemed like she had even up on any and all expectations she had ever had. She had given up and just went numb. One passage which high lights this emotional moment is when she says, “It could catch me and I wouldn’t care because everything dear to me had been taken away-my mum Mr. Watts. My father was somewhere out there in a world I had no hope of reaching. I was alone. The river could catch me and I wouldn’t care.”(Jones 214) This is the highlight of her low. She dose however find that once the river got her she did have a life and she wanted it saved. Once again she found something to hold on to, her father. Matilta had finally bottomed out completely. She finds her light at the end of the tunnel and goes on to college still caring Mr. Dickens around with her. A person can only hope that her life turned out right, and she went back home to Bougainville. It is very hard for a person to run away from where they came from and who they are. Even though broken hearts are painful they are part of life, and life most certainly goes on most times.
In conclusion, Mister Pip was Matilta’s best friend. It is hard to say if she would have made it out of the island let alone the river alive without him. Where ever a person can take refuge in times of crisis, is an important survival tool that should be used. A white boy from England who lived somewhere she had never been let alone understand saved her life. Everyone needs a friend and she had Pip. Of course there is always the other Mr. Pip, Mr. Watts who also helped her through hard times. The hope for change is sometimes the only thing that can keep a person going. Even while murder, rape, and war are in effect. This is important for any person who wants to just give up on life. Of course these things go hand in hand with broken hearts and it will hurt. However, if you can get through it with a good friend, a little hope, and being brave things might just turn out ok. A popular saying to remember is things always get the darkest before dawn.