Clearly dickens must use a wide range of techniques to gain and sustain his reader's interest.A very good technique that dickens used in Great Expectations is Dicken's larger than life characters

Other than the characters being larger than life, many characters’ personalities clash, and are extremely opposite. For instance, when Pip is describing Mrs Joe and Joe, he describes Joe as “mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy going, foolish, dear fellow”. However, he describes the way that Mrs Joe presents herself, as having a “coarse apron”, an “impregnable bib” that was stuck full of pins and needles and having a “trenchant way of cutting”. These two characters are very different as the nasty. Nightmarish, way that Mrs Joe dresses, with her dangerous needles and her “impregnable” apron, is contradictory to Joe’s easy manner and his kind gentle touch. It is strange that these two could forge a relationship, as there is a role-reversal issue because Mrs Joe is a brute, with her “trenchant way of cutting” and a rather manly attitude. Whereas Joe shows a kind and affectionate attitude towards Pip. It would also seem that Mrs Joe has an angry personality towards Pip and Joe as she bought them up “by hand”. I believe that this technique is very good because it creates variety, contrast and very exciting situations to keep the interest of the reader.

In Great expectations there is a wide use of similes and metaphors, which can also be used to describe characters sometimes. For example when Pip describes the way in which Mrs Joe Gargery cuts bread he says she “had a trenchant way of cutting the bread”, and “hewed” it in half. This can be reflected upon as her character being strong, brutal, and savage. This can be backed up by the example that Pip and Joe were raised “by hand”. This is also a more physical approach to her character. These similes and metaphors are also a more exciting way of describing a character. This is also keeps the reader much more engaged and less likely to resign from the gripping novel.

Throughout the novel on several occasions there are ironic twists in the story line. A very ironic moment is when Pip finds out that who his real benefactor is. Magwitch turns up at Pip’s door and later ecstatically claims “ this is the gentleman I made!” This moment is a real moral blow to Pip and is very crushing to find out Miss Havisham was not his real benefactor. This is an ironic twist because the very person that helped Pip become a “gentleman” was in fact a convict. Another ironic moment is that Estella, although she is rich and upper class, was adopted from a lower class background, so just like Pip, she is now rich, but her heritage lies lower down. Pip was visiting “Jagger’s” house and he noticed that the way the housekeeper presented herself and the way she knitted with her fingers together convinced him that “ this woman was Estella’s mother”. This is ironic because Estella, although she acts very proud of being upper class and is exceedingly harsh to Pip, has a heritage that lies in the lower class, as Miss Havisham adopted her from the housekeeper.  Its these exciting twists in the story line, that are unpredictable, that make Great Expectations such a gripping novel, that along with all the other techniques, fully gains and sustains the reader’s interest.