It has been argued that Great Expectations is a fairy tale that has gone wrong. What are the fairy tale elements and how are they disturbed?

This is an excellent topic to think about in relation to
this wonderful novel. You are, of course, completely right. There is every sense in
which Dickens intentionally modelled the beginning of his story at least on some kind of
fairy tale. Note the way in which Pip has a rags-to-riches moment. His mysterious
benefactor, which he and we assume is Miss Havisham, seems to play the part of the fairy
godmother, intending Pip to marry his princess, Estella, and giving him tremendous
wealth and education to enable him to do this. He is transported from his poor and
humble house in the marshes to London to begin his great
expectations.

However, crucially, throughout the text, at
every stage there is always a hint that everything is not quite right about this fairy
tale that Pip is experiencing. What kind of fairy godmother is Miss Havisham, who
encourages her ward to "break" Pip's heart and treat him so savagely? Estella herself
hardly plays the role of beautiful princess. She is beautiful, yes, but condescending,
proud, heartless and cold. In addition, the way in which Pip is haunted at every turn by
crime and criminals and the description of London is bleak, dark and depressing seems to
indicate the way in which Pip's great expectations are associated with his own
corruption. What is more, there are hints in the text that indicate that Pip's move up
in the world is only a move downwards in terms of his own character and happiness.
Consider what the text tells us at the end of Chapter Eighteen after Pip has received
news of his prospects:

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I put my light out, and crept to bed; and it was
an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any
more.

The arrival of wealth
has not made Pip's life any easier. In fact, it is the opposite, as his carefree days of
sound sleep and comfort have been lost.

This distortion of
the fairy tale continues when we realise who the fairy godmother of the piece is, and
we, and Pip, are horrified by the revelation. This story is based on a fairy tale, yes,
but at the same time it is almost a perversion of one.