Great Expectations

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Chris Powell 11F

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens, ( Born 7th February 1812, Died 9th June 1870 ) was a very successful novelist during the Victorian period, ( 19th Century ). He wrote some famous novels such as “A Christmas Carol “ “Oliver Twist“, and “Great Expectations“ which I will be studying. Usually in such novels he would relate to and address social issues such as crime, punishment and moral issues. He wanted to give his readers an insight into the 19th century.

        In the opening Chapter of “Great Expectations” Charles Dickens employs a variety of techniques in order to hook the reader making them want to buy the next chapter in their weekly newspaper. He creates a strong vivid image of each character. I will be looking at how Dickens engages and sustains the interest of the reader in Chapters 1 and 30 of Great Expectations.

        The first chapter introduces us to  the character “Pip” rather than it being third person, from a neutral point of view, it’s first person, from the narrators perspective, but Pip is the narrator, this is to emphasise the situations Pip is in throughout the novel, to make the reader feel sorry for Pip. The opening paragraph straight away sets the tone about Pip, mainly to give us a strong impression of him from an early stags, once again making the reader sympathise with him. The opening page begins to give us a picture of Pip, straight away Pip says “ My Fathers name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Phillip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.” This suggests to us that at a young age, it later goes on to say that his parents passed away when he was still of a young age. This implies that Pip had a hard up-bringing, due to the fact he never really had a chance to be brought up fully by his parents, this makes us feel sorry for him and sway towards his side. Pip then goes on to say that he never seen his mother or father or anyone who could represent or be anything like them, once again making us have more sympathy for him. Pip being the narrator and also the main or “central” character has more of an impact on the reader, due to the fact that everything is coming from his point of view making us take it in more so than we would of if a neutral narrator was used. The way Pip got his name also creates a lot of sympathy for him as it suggest that he has no stability in his upbringing. The name Pip suggest he is small, this is because it is a shortened and mixed version of his Christian name “Phillip”, and his fathers name “Pirrip”, this is significant because it emphasises the smallness and weakness of himself, which could be compared to a pip of an apple which is quite small. This sets that in the readers head straight from the start of the novel.

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        Around the time Great Expectations was written a lot of children were dying at young age due to quite a lot of diseases going about. This could mean that Great Expectations suggests to us that Pip is lucky to avoid catching anything that would put his life in danger. Being a rather small sized child, he could have had more chance of catching something, as he could be weak or even scrawny, catching disease would hav surely gave him the same fate as his brothers and sisters. That outcome being dying at a young age, as all of his brothers ...

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