Great Expectations Alternate Ending

In the novel Great Expectations, there are two endings; the original ending that Charles Dickens wrote, and the ending that was published in 1860. The original ending that Dickens wrote shows what Estella went through in her relationship with Drummel, who treated her with no respect and basically abused her, and how her second marriage was going since Drummel died. When Estella spots Pip walking around in London with Little Pip, she pulls her carriage over and has her maid go and stop Pip, so Estella could talk with Pip. At their little discussion, Estella asked Pip to “Pick up that pretty child [little Pip] and let me kiss it” (492). As Estella does that, Pip has a thought that Estella must have assumed that little Pip was Pip’s child,
It also explained that after writing Tale of Two Cities and seeing the reactions of the public, Dickens made a promise saying “You will not have to complain of the want of humor as in Tale of Two Cities. I have made the opening, I hope, in its general effect exceedingly droll”(The Two Endings of Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ page 2). When his friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a fellow author, read the original ending of Great Expectations and didn’t seem thrilled, Dickens knew that he messed up and didn’t keep his promise. In the revised ending, Charles Dickens fixed his mistakes and made it so that Pip and Estella ended together happily, and not Pip realizing a change in Estella. After learning about the promise that Charles Dickens made to the public in the passage, readers can start to understand that the characters and their actions in Great Expectations were mostly based off of Charles Dickens’ circumstances. For instance, Pip’s love for Estella weakens towards the end of the novel, and so does the love that Charles Dickens has for his novel. Dickens’s love for his novel decreases towards the end because he was forced to change the ending of the novel to something that he didn’t want. Another example is of Estella’s love for Pip. In the second ending of Great
The original ending just sends off mixed messages of whether or not Estella does still like Pip, and it doesn’t give me enough of a feeling of satisfaction that the second ending did. Another reason why I prefer the second ending over the original ending is the fact that the second ending allows for so many different interpretations of what happened between Estella and Pip, and what will happen in the future between them. For example, some readers could view the second ending as Pip and Estella finally falling in love, where other people could view Pip and Estella living the rest of their lives as just friends. I feel like I am more on the side with the people that believe that Pip and Estella are finally falling in love, solely because I have wanted them to fall in love for a really long time now. All in all, I feel that both endings would have been a lovely way to end Great Expectations and through Charles Dickens’s own words “A loving heart is the truest wisdom”, which is satisfied through both endings of Great