We learn that Pip is very respectful of others; we can tell this because instead of calling his sister by her first name, he calls her “Mrs. Joe Gargery” and because he calls the convict “Sir”. He is also very polite to the convict even when he is very scared and possibly in great danger, we know this because he says, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more”. Pip also agrees to get the “File and wittles” for the convict but this could be more out of fear than politeness.
When Pip is in the graveyard he meets a convict. We can tell that the convict is trying to scare Pip because he says “Hold your noise…. keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat”. We are also told about his appearance. The text says that he was “A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled…”. We can tell that the convict is nervous because when he asks where Pip’s mother is and Pip replies “There, sir!” The text says, “He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder”. The convict seems to become more sympathetic when he finds out that Pip’s parents are dead. He tries to make sure that Pip is still afraid by tilting him backwards and saying that there is a young man who will tear his heart and liver out if he does not bring the file and wittles.
The first chapter in the story is set in a graveyard in “The marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea”. We can tell that this place is desolate and unkempt, because it says, “At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard”. It is also very lonely, because, apart from the “scattered cattle” and the convict, there is no one there. All that can be seen are a series of lines, the marshes, river and sky. We know this because the text says “The marshes were just a long, black, horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long, angry, red lines and dense black lines intermixed”.
We know that Pip is a child because of the way he says “My infant tongue” and also by the way that he imagines how his parents looked by looking and at their tombstones, together with the writing on them. Also, the text says, “The small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip”. We can also assume that he is young, because he calls the convict “sir” and he is very polite and respectful towards adults in general. The way that he refers to his mother as “Also Georgiana” conveys that he is young because he does not like to admit that she is dead. The convict calling Pip “You young dog” shows a further indication that Pip is very young.
Pip was “Dreadfully frightened and so giddy that” he clung “To him with both hands”. An adult, or a person of more mature years, would probably not cling to a convict. At the end of the first chapter the text states that Pip “Was frightened again, and ran home without stopping”. It is unlikely that an adult would behave in this manner.
This is effective as a first chapter, because you are kept in suspense. It is extremely descriptive and uses original ways to describe things, such as “The marshes were just a long, black, horizontal line”. The story includes the classic main characters – the good guy and the bad guy. The author uses Pip’s character and background to create sympathy towards him because even though he is an orphan and only young he still calls the convict threatening to kill him, “Sir”.
