小说《伟大前程》（又名《孤星血泪》）被认为是查尔斯•狄更斯的代表作之一。作为一部成长小说，《远大前程》围绕主人公的成长过程，讲述了主人公从一个善良、不谙世事的小男孩到成熟男人的转变所经历的艰辛困苦。鉴于主人公的成长历程，本论文将小说主人公的成长过程分为三个阶段，包括他的童年，远大前程和成熟。追求上等人的绅士生活的过程中，主人公饱受挫折、屈辱和困苦。 但是，最终，主人公还是回到了善良无邪的他，并且未成为了一个成熟的男人。影响主人公皮普成长的因素很多。本篇论文，通过分析主人公成长的三个阶段，从而剖析这部小说的成长主题和影响其成长的主要因素。

Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations is considered to be one of his masterpieces. The novel is written in the style of bildungsroman, a novel of growth and character shaping. The story reveals the process of the protagonist’s growth and personal development, in which a young man growing from a weak and scared little boy to a powerful and confident young man, from an immature man to a true gentleman. The thesis divides the protagonist Pip’s growth and character development into three distinct stages including his childhood, his great expectations and his maturity. By close examination of the three stages, the thesis concludes that having gone through all the growing-up pains and experienced defeats, humiliation and frustration in his quest for being a gentleman, Pip comes back to his goodness at the end of the novel and accomplishes his maturity. The thesis also discusses the factors that contribute to Pip’s character development.