What does 'great expectations' refer to?

But one by one, Great Expectations destroys Pip's great expectations. London isn't a gold-paved paradise; it's a filthy rat-hole. His fortune isn't from Miss Havisham; it's from Magwitch. He's not going to become a rich gentleman; he's going to become a hardworking shipping agent. read more

Great expectations may literally refer to the fortune he expects to inherit—"expectations" was nineteenth-century code for"I'm going to inherit money when Grandpa dies"—but they're also every hope he ever had. read more

I believe we should have “great expectations” from ourselves, not others. This way, we won’t be so easily disappointed in case things are not going so great, as most humans have a tendency to forgive ourselves much more easily. read more

Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. It is the second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. read more