The part of the story where we first meet Magwitch is set in an overgrown churchyard. ‘This bleak place overgrown with nettles.’ The churchyard is surrounded by marshland. ‘With scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes.’ In the churchyard young Pip is visiting the graves of his late father, mother and siblings. The part of the story were we first meet Miss Havisham is set in her dressing room in a house that is very run down and has been left the way it was them many years ago. ‘I entered therefore and found myself in a pretty large room…It was a dressing room.’ Miss Havisham has asked for a boy to play with her ward Estella. This boy ends up being Pip.
At the beginning of the story when Magwitch first appears he seems to be acting very cautious because he sneaks up on Pip like he wants to make sure that the boy (Pip) will not betray him. ‘A man started up from the graves at the side of the church porch.’ When we first come across the character Miss Havisham she is behaving quite small mind because she is going on about how she hates men and does not like anything to do with them and does not seem to want anything to do women either. ‘I want diversion, and I have done with men and women.’ She also likes to be in charge.
Magwitch and Miss Havisham seem to have very different manners of speech. Miss Havisham is very formal and does not use any slang or have an accent. She is also more formal than Pip and speaks a lot more formal than Magwitch. Magwitch seems to speak with an accent. He tends to say ‘Pint’ instead of point, and says ‘us’ instead of ‘me’. He also tends to use a lot of slang and not talk very formally. Pip speaks more formally than Magwitch.
Dickens allows his characters to develop and alter in this novel. In chapter 1 Magwitch has scared Pip. ‘“O! Don’t cut my throat, sir.” I pleaded in terror.’ he has also persuaded him to go home to get a file and some food and bring them to him early the next morning. ’You bring me, tomorrow morning early, that file and them wittles.’ In chapter 56 he has ‘spoken his last words’ when Pip explains to him that he had a long-lost daughter that he never knew (Estella). He kisses Pip’s hand, then passes away peacefully in prison with Pip by his side (who took care of him till the end) after returning from exile in Australia. In chapter 1 Magwitch seems evil and cruel but by chapter 56 he seems to have softened. In chapter 8 Miss Havisham is an ageing lady who seems to be stuck in the past and occasionally has ‘sick fancies’ one of these ‘sick fancies’ was to see a boy play. To Pip she seems to be a strange lady. ‘Sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.’ In chapter 49 Miss Havisham has lead Pip along because she lead Pip to believe he would be able to marry Estella when really she was to marry someone else. Miss Havisham is also now quite a troubled old lady because she breaks down when visited by Pip and tells him about what she has done and she seems really guilty and also seems to have gone mad. ‘What have I done! What have I done!’
Magwitch’s influence and effect on Pip through out the story is very different to Miss Havisham’s influence and effect on Pip. When Pip and Magwitch first meet Magwitch scares and terrifies young Pip because he has escaped from prison and does not trust anybody. He does this by using harsh words in a fearful tone of voice and the use of angery/frightening body language. Pip also collects food for Magwitch maybe out of pure fear or because he feels sorry for Magwitch. But later on in the story while Magwitch is in Australia we learn that he has become Pip’s secret benefactor sending Pip money helping him to become a Gentleman. Pip learns to like Magwitch but sees him recaptured by the authorities when returning from exile in Australia. While when Miss Havisham and Pip first meet Pip is afraid of her at first but after a while he learns not to be. Pip is like this because he is shocked by the way Miss Havisham looks. ‘The strangest lady I have ever seen or shall ever see.’ Miss Havisham leads Pip on by letting him believe that she has plans for him and her ward Estella. When Magwitch his secret benefactor sets up a life for him he assumes automatically it is Miss Havisham and still believes he will marry Estella in the future.
Both characters seem to be rooted in the 19th century but would seem very out of date to many of the people reading the book now a days. When this book was written the death penalty still existed so if a convict committed a serious crime they were more likely to be hung on a gibbet then face a life sentence in jail. ‘The other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which one held a pirate.’ Magwitch was shipped of to the colonies in Australia because he was a convict this does not occur today. Convicts like Magwitch had to wear leg irons in prison because that was the way they were treated. This method is not used today. Magwitch want Pip to become a gentleman because back then class was very important on a social scale. If you were a working or middle class citizen you were not very respected back then. But if you were a gentleman you would be very well respected. Miss Havisham would not be respected very much in society because she was jilted by her fiancé on her wedding day and marriage was the only way for a woman to gain any social status. This would not apply to life today because a woman could have a good social status without being married. Where there is a use of candles in Miss Havisham’s house this indicates that there was no electricity at the time. Miss Havisham also has a lot of expensive personal belonging and an expensive house that only upper class people could afford. This shows how much superior Miss Havisham is to Pip. Both characters talk in old English that would seem very out of place today. Magwitch speaks in slang and Miss Havisham speaks in a posh voice. This also indicates the difference between their social statuses. More people talk in slang/informally today then posh/formal like Miss Havisham.
In conclusion I think that the techniques Charles Dickens used to create a sense of character worked quite well. Dickens uses a lot of descriptive techniques to show the emotions of the character. Describing how the character looks and how they behave really helps Dickens to create a good sense of character. I think the character Estella is most vivid because she is mentioned in both of the chapters I used on Miss Havisham but she is not described very well all we really find out is that she was brought up by Miss Havisham to break men’s hearts and that she does not really like Pip because he is a common boy.
