Great Expectation

Authors Avatar
Great Expectation

"Great expectation" is written by Charles Dickens which is a Bildungsroman. A Bildungsroman is a story where a single individual grows and develops within the context of defined social order. The novel conforms to the Bildungsroman genre because it is set in a hierarchical Victorian society and we take pip's development within this society.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss how Dickens established the identity of young pip at the start of the novel.

In chapter one, the reader learns that Pip is a poor boy. He is an imaginative boy because he imagines what his family looked like by looking at their tombstone. "The shape of the letters on my father, gave me an odd idea that he was a square stout, dark man with curly black hair.

The setting of the place is in a graveyard. It is a "raw afternoon" and beyond the churchyard is a "dark flat wilderness". A convict comes and turns Pip upside down which make Pip afraid of the convict. The convict scares him. He said "Your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate." Pip is being threatened and is manipulated. Pip is forced to do something he doesn't want to do which show he is in petrify situation.
Join now!


He is polite because even when he is terrified by the convict, he still called the convict "sir", "Goo-good night, sir." pip is good, but he is having a difficult. This has told me that pip's family treat him badly.

Joe is describing as a "fair man" who suggests he has light shin, his appearance also makes him seem kind. Mrs Joe has "black hair" and "eye" which suggest she is defined and definite. She has a "redness of skin" which tells that she always get angry.

Pip's home life shows us a lot about ...

This is a preview of the whole essay