In Chapter one there is a lot told about Pips overall character through some clues left by Charles Dickens. One of the most obvious and the earliest being that “My fathers family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Phillip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip”. This is the first paragraph in the novel and through this it is straightforward to figure out how simple of a boy Pip is. Another effect that the name ‘Pip’ gives is one of immaturity and naivety as such a simple name has. Somehow the fact that his original name being Phillip seems to add to the effect of his so called ‘name’ as Phillip is such a sophisticated name whereas Pip is quite the opposite. Such character attributes are also clearly seen through the chapter however other attributes also take effect not least at the point where he encounters Abel Magwitch. Through the whole of this particular chapter it is apparent that Pip is a very obedient and vulnerable character as he follows all of Magwitch’s orders and commands and seems to make no effort to defend himself or run away. Although the novel is based around Pip, it seems to be principally based around the change of Pip’s fortunes and his dramatic growth in social status from one day working as a Blacksmith’s assistant in a poor family background to being a gentleman of noteworthy value. Although this is mainly helped by the ‘unknown’ benefactor it is still clear to see that through his whole life Pip has been brought up in a way so that his attitude towards his current life is to always try and get a higher social status for the same reasons that beleaguered Charles Dickens and many other people living in the Victorian era, the fact that the lower class people, especially children suffered as the wealth of other people in the country grew. Pip’s determination to achieve his dream could be observed in his frequent visits to Miss Havisham and how hard he tried to impress her. Even with his uneducated speaking voice which is apparent through his dialogue. All this shows the reader how underprivileged and deprived of life Pip leads and that his chances of becoming a gentleman seem to be getting slimmer day by day unless an out of the ordinary chance comes up.
By writing Great Expectations as a first person narrative, Dickens forces to Pip to tell his own story. In doing this, the audience is not merely a spectator to all of the events. The reader only sees what Pip allows, and thus the novel becomes Pip's version of the events. Pip focuses his narrative upon his own guilt and his ability to redeem himself. In this way, Pip is asking for the reader's sympathy and forgiveness for his behaviour and choices. Pip links his narrative together with his own uneducated language and his audience understands that, even during his most selfish times, his forge education and his love and respect for Joe never left him. This allows the audience to become more attached to Pip and more involved in the meaning of his life. As Pip learns and grows, the audience is affected by his suffering and sympathetic to his desires. The repetition of significant items from Pip's childhood, such as Joe's file and Magwitch's leg-iron, helps the audience to know that Pip has never got rid of his old roots. Perfectly reflecting one of Dickens’ main themes, family values.
Abel Magwitch, also know simply as "The Convict" is a career criminal at the beginning of the novel, with what seem like no redeeming qualities. A convict and Pip’s benefactor, at different times in the story Magwitch is both villain and hero. He stalks Pip in the cemetery after escaping from prison as the novel opens. Magwitch makes his fortune, secretly using his money to finance Pip’s education and lifestyle through Jaggers, elevating the boy into increasingly higher social circles. At the end of the novel, however, his crimes catch up to him and he is caught, Magwitch has to come to terms with the damage he has caused. An example of the theme of relationships and social class is Pip's relationship with Magwitch. Initially Pip is horrified to learn that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham (as he thought of his relationship with Estella), but instead Magwitch the convict. At the end of the story Pip has different feelings toward Magwitch. He is very fond of him and is at his side when he dies. All of these events and how he portrays Magwitch, Miss Havisham and Estella show that he is driven to judge people by their social status at first however he realises through the novel that this is not a fair way and that social class is just a superficial way of discriminating humans and it’s what that is deep inside people that matters which is also reflective of his perception towards Joe Gargery who at first he is ashamed of yet as the story builds his thoughts about him radically change.
Probably the largest tool that Dickens uses throughout the novel is his use of language and dialogue. Charles Dickens’ language cannot be compared to any other writer in that time as his style and format is bizarre. Many of his vocabulary is unfamiliar and elongated yet this and the complex sentences make it a piece of reading requiring the full attention of the reader. Other language tools that Dickens uses are the emphasis on the tone of voice in the novel. For example, he may have wrote a word yet he may mean the exact opposite and the only way the reader can work this out is by clever reading of the tone of voice that is meant. This is also outlined by the fact that a majority of the dialogue in the play is written phonetically so to augment the effect of tone of voice. “It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet, and mud, mud, mud deep in all the streets”. The repetition Dickens uses when describing the weather circumstances clearly emphasizes just how miserable it is. Thus showing that the main effect that Dickens uses repetition on is to give emphasis to the meaning behind it however in times in the story it can be observed that Pip seems to use a lot of repetition maybe suggesting that he is finding it hard to get his message across as he was deprived of an education. Punctuation is also used to powerful effect. In general the punctuation seems to be based around question marks punctuation marks and the simple full stops. The punctuation and question marks take hold when Pip encounters Magwitch and from then on he is fired away with questions and orders resulting in the punctuation yet before this part of Chapter one punctuation is scarcely used and is mostly in the form of full stops yet even them are used in a minority of numbers resulting in the long complex style that Dickens brings out.
On the whole, Chapter 1 has a pivotal roll to play through the whole of the novel as it sets out everything for the reader and introduces a number of key characters to be familiarised with the reader. The setting of the chapter also build a lot of atmosphere as previously explained and gets the reader to understand the general style of the novel while other themes are introduced such as Family (Mr and Mrs Gargery) and Crime (in the form of ‘the convict’) in chapter 1. Another reason behind the importance of Chapter 1 is its plentiful number of clues that are given to the references made to the last chapter. However Charles Dickens’s technique of cliff hangers has been used to great effect throughout the novel. So in general Chapter 1 turns out to be one of the most important and vital parts of the novel Great Expectations.
