Dickens uses a lot of metaphors to describe what he is saying in the story “Savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea”. Dickens uses imagery in chapter one “overgrown with nettles” and “dark flat wilderness”. This is describing the graveyard and creates images of gravestones and the church overgrown in nettles situated on a flat area of land. Dickens also uses repetition in many places to add effect “He tilted me again”
The place where Pip lives is in the middle of nowhere “ours was the marsh country, within as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea”. There is a sudden burst of tension when an unknown character suddenly appears, “Hold your noise”. This happens very suddenly and grabs the readers attention. Towards the end of the first chapter Dickens uses a gothic symbol of death to create fear in both the characters and the readers, “A gibbet with some chains hanging to it”. A gibbet is a piece of equipment used to bring about the end of someone’s life especially that of a pirate. It is also sometimes known as a hangman’s gallows.
Pip is the main character who instantly gets the readers interested in his story from the start. The name Pip being a nickname from “Phillip Pirrip” would state a point that he may be small for his age and may resemble a seed or a Pip, “undersized for my years”. Pip is an orphan who knows only the names of his parents and where they are buried “As I never saw my father of my mother”. Any description he has of his parents or his five brothers are “derived from their tombstones” indicating a childish imagination. Pip has the impression that his father was a “square, stout, dark man” whereas his mother was “freckled and sickly”. At this point he suddenly realizes he is all alone in the world and will have to cope “small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry”.
Pip describes the day he met Magwitch as a “memorable raw afternoon towards evening” in “this bleak place” which expresses how an important but unpleasant event is about to occur. When Magwitch is threatening Pip, Pip still respects him whilst he is trying to defend himself “O! Don’t cut my throat, sir!” He also says ‘sir’ after everything he says to Magwitch. We get the idea that Pip is sometimes frightened or scared in this chapter, “I was frightened” “I pleaded in terror” and “growing afraid of it all”. Pip may be scared early on in the chapter when Magwitch, the “fearful man” suddenly appears and starts threatening him. However Pip has another reason to be scared right at the end of the chapter and he lets his childish imagination run away with him. As he sees Magwitch limping towards the ‘gibbet’ Pip reckons he looks rather like a “pirate come to life”. At this point Pip is getting more and more scared as he remembers what Magwitch had said earlier about the “horrible young man” and he “looked all round” for him before he “ran home without stopping”.
The character of Magwitch is introduced to the readers suddenly and is described to us as a “fearful convict” with a “terrible voice”. We get the idea Magwitch is an escaped convict from the manacle, “great iron” that is around his leg, he has no hat on “a man with no hat”, “broken shoes” and an “old rag tied around his head”. However we are made to feel sorry for Magwitch when Dickens describes him as “lamed”, “stung”, “torn” and “cut” by nature. The use of verbs rather than adjectives only heightens the effect.
Magwitch is not a gentleman because of the lack of his hat in this chapter “man with no hat”. During the time in which Great Expectations is set, men of a higher class would have almost certainly wear a top hat when going out but because of his lack of hat we know he is of the lower class. His speech is also very common and of the lower class because he is unable to pronounce some of his letters and words correctly. He says ‘wittles’ instead of ‘vittles’ (vittles is a type of food) and ‘pint’ instead of ‘point’.
Magwitch uses lots of extraordinary threats on Pip “I’ll cut your throat” to show his authority. However he has no intention of carrying out the threats himself, as a “young man” is hiding with him “now I ain’t as alone as you think I am”. At this point Dickens makes us think ‘Why is this young man hiding?’ Another part in the story where Magwitch shows us his authority is when he is tilting Pip and trying to persuade him to bring him “that file and them wittles” by turning Pip upside down “most tremendous dip and roll”.
Magwitch also uses some vulgar expressions on Pip when he is threatening him “you little devil”. Before Magwitch swears by God “Lord strike you dead if you don’t” he keeps tilting Pip backwards, “he tilted me” this is repeated several times to tell us how much Pip is being tilted.
A different part in this chapter, where Dickens makes us feel sorry for Magwitch is when he is “[limping] towards the low church wall”. This is quite a pathetic image, unlike the one where he is threatening Pip, of a man who may be heading towards the end of his life “A man whose legs are mumbled and stiff”. In the eyes of young Pip, he describes Magwitch as though he were “eluding the hands of the dead people,” this conveys an image of dead people pulling him in to the grave, which is a classical image of gothic literature “hellish”
On the whole, the convict has a sense of humor “I wish I was a frog”, he also makes idle threats and his emotions are shown.
In conclusion Dickens successfully creates atmosphere and introduces character in chapter one of great expectations with the use of repetition “he tilted me again”, metaphors “the low leaden line beyond was the river” and the use of verbs instead of adjectives “lamed” and “stung”. Humor is also used to add drama to this chapter “I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t”
