The use of language is very complex; it contains words that are not used today like ‘wittles’ meaning food and drink or ‘lozenges’ meaning diamond shaped, i.e. children’s tombstones. The style of writing contains a lot of repetition, this gives a persistent effect, e.g. ‘”you bring me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles” he tilted me again” “you bring them both to me” he tilted me again “or I’ll have your heart and liver out!” he tilted me again’. Also it very clear that the story is written from an adults’ point of view looking back to when he was a child because the language is so mature and complex that it’s just impossible to think that a 9 year old child could speak that way. The sentences are long, descriptive and seem to always follow a rhythm. Dickens plays around with language to give a clear image of pip’s imagination. ‘The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly’. The quote shows how pip imagines his parents from the lettering of their tombstones.
In the first chapter Pip meets the convict. He doesn’t think much of the meeting later on is life but this meeting ends up being the most important event in the novel. That meeting probably led to pip thinking that Miss Havisham, an old yet rich and heart broken bride, thought that she was his benefactor and that he was meant to grow into a gentleman who would suit the beautiful and heartless Estella. Later on in the novel when Magwhitch decides to reveal himself, pip’s idea of his benefactors collapses and his dream of being with Estella. The novel is hard to understand because there are characters left, right and centre. We find out most people are linked with each other in some way e.g. Estella was Magwhitch’s and Jaggers house keeper’s daughter and Jaggers was Miss Havisham’s lawyer and pip’s guardian. Everything is interlinked with one another.
In conclusion I think chapter one was a very effective opening to great expectations because the first scene is dramatic already giving the reader some excitement. The chapter is a perfect example of the pre 1914 writing it is persistent and rhythmic which gives the opening chapter a very certain structure of the rest of the novel by sticking to the same pattern. The sentences are complicated to give a complex structure and the most important event happens in this chapter, where pip meets his future benefactor who will give him great opportunities. It is also a very interesting point that the book is written from an adults’ point to view looking back to when they were young, what is interesting about it is that from an adult’s/child’s’ point of view we are able to make sense of what is happening, where as if a child was to be narrating the whole story at the heat of the moment, we would be having trouble understanding because a child’s vocabulary is different to an adult’s vocabulary, it is very limited unlike an educated adult’s, which is very wide.
