“Goodbye Joe”
The main way Dickens portrays this point is by showing how much of an evil criminal a “gentleman” can be and he has done that by making the character Compeyson. Compeyson is a criminal who is evil at heart unlike Magwitch who only chose a life of crime because it was his only choice. Compeyson on the other hand is a rich man with a good status within society and therefore was dealt with more leniently in court than Magwitch was despite them being charged for the same crime.
Magwitch represents Dickens view of crime; the main belief of Charles Dickens that Magwitch portrays is that not all criminals are evil, Dickens father was branded a criminal and this I feel inspired him to show in a novel that criminals are not necessarily evil. He achieves this through Magwitch; and the main way he does this is by changing Pips view of Magwitch as the novel goes on. When Pip meets Magwitch at the very beginning of the novel he is terrified and stutters as he speaks;
“Pip. Pip, sir”
After Pip has stolen the “wittles” and the “file”, he thinks of Magwitch of a typical criminal and names him “convict” and a monster; at this point the reader will feel exactly the same. Once Magwitch returns later in the novel Pips feeling haven’t changed and therefore neither has the readers. In fact Pip hates Magwitch,
“It is me who has made a gentleman on you”, “I am your second father”.
Theses words from Magwitch deepens Pips hatred as his dreams of being meant for Estella are dashed,
“O Estella, Estella”,
And he feels disgusted towards Magwitch and the fact his life is stained with crime, Magwitch is only a convict, a “dunghill dog” and a ghastly burden;
“He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood”, “I was chained to”, “Dreadful burden”, “There was convict in the very grain of the man”. This use of emotive descriptive language by Charles Dickens gives the reader a negative feeling towards Magwitch, this language is the key to influence the reader with Pips feelings as the descriptive techniques and the emotive words describe Pips negative feelings accurately.
Pip feels at this point; once a criminal, always a criminal and this shown in an extremely long sentence on page three hundred and nine;
“In all his ways of sitting and standing, and eating and drinking-of brooding about, in a high shouldered reluctant style-of taking out his great horn handled jack knife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food – of lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy pannikins – of chopping a wedge of his bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the most of an allowance, and then drying his fingers on it, and then swallowing it – in these ways and a thousand other small nameless instances arising every minute in the day there was Prisoner, Felon, Bondsman, plain as plain could be.”
The length of the sentence causes Pips feelings towards Magwitch to be shown dramatically, this a technique that Dickens has used to create the dramatic affect. At this point Pip is feeling that Magwitch was a criminal and still is, this is exactly how people felt in the Victorian society. Dickens shows that criminals can change by changing Pips view to Magwitch as the novel goes on.
Pip starts to feel more sympathetic towards Magwitch once Magwitch gives his side of the story and explains why he went into a life crime. Pip caring more for a convict helps cure him of his snobbery. This also portrays a belief that Charles Dickens had; Dickens believed that class does not determine what sort of person somebody is. Once Pip realises that not all criminals have a heart of evil and that your poverty should not be your destiny.
Dickens gains the readers sympathy for Magwitch during the trial, Dickens does this by showing to the reader that Magwitch is dying and that he needs Pip to hold his hand and that it’s the only way he feels the slightest bit of comfort. Also as Pip shouts to the judge;
“He came back for my sake!”
At this point readers are sympathetic towards Magwitch as he is about to be hung for coming back to look at his creation of a gentleman and for a life of forced crime. At the trial Dickens does not want the readers to accept the judges views, this again goes back to what Dickens thought of the Victorian society and again he uses Magwitch to symbolise his beliefs. Pip retells the judges harsh words as a man who is on Magwitches team and again this influences the reader by feeling the same way about Magwitch as Pip does. “The appointed punishment for his return to the land
The comparisons between Magwitch and Pip and the comparisons between Magwitch and Compeyson also relate to and portray Dickens view of society in the era. The name “Magwitch” simply sound threatening and as he holds a little boy named “Pip” he is portrayed as the common menacing criminal in the Victorian era. However in the end there is not much difference between the little poor boy and the “evil” convict; both of whom at the end of the novel shared the same views of the law; Compeyson’s comparison to Magwitch clearly underlines that a person’s class is not who they are. As Compeyson is a gentleman with money and Magwitch is a poor convict; however it is Compeyson who is evil at heart.
Dickens effect of emotive language, ironic situations and figurative language makes the reader feel sympathetic towards Magwitch, especially at the time of the trial. However the language techniques he uses does underline the initial feeling of “convict” towards Magwitch right from the very start.
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He tilted me again. “You bring em both to me.” He tilted me again.
This use of repetition tells the reader that this escaped convict must be evil as he is bulling a small, poor and helpless boy. Also when Magwitch returns later on in the novel, Dickens creates a sense of gloom and fear; he uses pathetic fallacy and uses list of three and repetition to emphasise the use of it;
“Stormy and wet, stormy and wet” “mud, mud, mud”
Dickens symbolism of the “broad shaft of light” dividing the judge from those being sentenced is a use of figurative language to emphasise the much higher position and better life of the judge, it also means that God is looking down on the condemned people.
In conclusion I feel that Abel Magwitch is one of the more significant characters in the novel, he is not however the main character as the novel is based on Pips life story and therefore Pip is the main character. However Magwitch portrays the reasons for which Dickens wrote this novel and therefore many could argue that he is the main character.
