The story begins with a seven-year-old boy on Christmas Eve. Pip is an orphan growing up in England. In the first expectation Pip lives with his sister and her husband. He has a bad experience working for an old lady and then becomes an apprentice of his brother in law. In the second expectation Pip is in London and is learning the good and the bad ways of a new social class. In the final expectation Pip learns that he cannot gain back many valuable things he has cast away.