Two Endings

The two endings of Great Expectations have common ideas at their center but veer in very different directions in terms of depiction. Both endings feature a reunion between Estella and Pip years after Drummle has (somewhat fittingly) been killed by a horse that he had treated badly, though in the original ending she remarries. Both endings imply that Estella's years of unhappiness with Drummle have wiped away Miss Havisham's teachings of disdain towards all men and given her an appreciation of what Pip had gone through. But while the original ending depicts a quick encounter between Pip and Estella in the middle of the street, the canonical ending gives their meeting more room to breathe. 

There's been discussion as to whether Dickens makes the mistake of revising his ending to be more audience-friendly (and it definitely is, as unlike the original ending there's hope that Pip and Estella might have a future together -- the final words of the novel, "I saw no shadow of another parting from her," leave this ambiguous). I don't know if Dickens betrays the novel by veering away from the ending that would seem truer to real life, but I think the value of the revised ending is that Estella gets her say, in a way she never really had previously. Throughout the novel she's a character who is acted upon: she is corrupted by Miss Havisham's teachings; she is the object of Pip's affections. Even in the original ending it's up to Pip to interpret their encounter as proof that she has softened towards him. But in this ending she gets to tell Pip that her feelings have changed, and that makes all the difference in terms of allowing her to be a character with an inner life and agency. What the ending leaves me with isn't the idea that Pip and Estella might get married (or, conversely, that they might not see each other again) but that after this meeting they're finally on equal footing and there's nothing in the way of them truly understanding each other.