Great Expectations

The argument

You should read Great Expectations during quarantine because Charles Dickens was a successful writer, and his writings still prevail as foundational literature. Charles Dickens' writings greatly influenced the nature of storytelling — so much so that his style of writing inspired the term "Dickensian", an adjective that exists because no existing word covered what he was doing. As any fan of the classics will tell you, they laid the foundation of modern literature, which means a reader who picks one up is reading the source of conventions they already know from everything written since. For this reason, everyone should read the classics at least once, and this quarantine provides the perfect opportunity to do it. Charles Dickens' success as a writer is evident in the classic Victorian novel, Great Expectations. Set in Victorian England, Dickens creates characters such as Pip, Miss Havisham, Joe, and Estella. He also tackles subjects such as child abuse, depression, isolation, and emotional despair of a broken heart. That combination is what draws the reader into a story that captures the intricacies of human behavior: the subjects are heavy ones, but they arrive attached to particular people rather than as arguments about them. These themes are timeless, and will undoubtedly be relatable for all readers — perhaps especially for anyone spending a long stretch cut off from other people. Great Expectations is a captivating story, which gives readers knowledge about the past with characters that relate to the present. The entertaining and suspenseful story provides the perfect distraction from the world-wide quarantine.

Premises

Counter-arguments

This argument is under the assumption that people want to read classic literature. Despite their notoriety, classic novels might be less appealing to people who prefer successful modern authors. Since some people do not genuinely enjoy classic literature, they will not connect with Dickens' characters or find a means of escape in Great Expectations.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Historical importance is a reason to study a book, not a reason to enjoy one, and the premise moves between the two. A reader who prefers contemporary fiction gains nothing from being told the novel is foundational, and quarantine supplies time rather than appetite — which the argument treats as the same resource. [Rejecting P2] "Timeless and relatable" is doing most of the work. The novel runs to several hundred pages of Victorian prose in a remote social world, and its themes — child cruelty, thwarted love, class shame, prolonged disappointment — are precisely the heavy material that other arguments in this question warn against for a reader already isolated. [Rejecting P3] Its suspense was constructed for serial publication, with the pacing that implies; whether that reads as captivating or as slow is a matter of taste, and the premise assumes the answer. The recommendation depends throughout on a reader who already likes classic literature, which is the assumption the counter-argument disputes.