Pip’s meeting with Magwitch and Miss Havisham are life changing events for him. How Dicken has’s described the meetings to make them powerful, dramatic and memorable?
Introduction
Great expectations is about an orphan who meets several important people in his life. This changes him dramatically and makes him a better person. At the beginning he has nothing but then he meets a person who later on in the story becomes his benefactor.
The meetings with Magwitch and Miss Havisham are significant in Pip’s life because it turns around the way he acts and the way he is. The moment he meets Miss Havisham and Estella he wants to become a gentlemen which he later on for fills in the story.
Pip’s meeting with Magwitch
Pip meets the convict Magwitch when he is on the way to visit his dead parents in a graveyard. Straight away this makes the reader feel sympathy for Pip who is now an orphan.
Magwitch is introduced in the story with a dramatic impact. Appearing from the darkness of the churchyard. His dramatic entrance starts with a forceful threat to Pip. This causes Pip to panic in fear.
“Hold your noise! Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat”. This displays Magwitch as a terrifying person in the eye’s of Pip and the reader. Magwitch also seems frightening because he threatens Pip straight away without any hesitation.
On the other hand, Dickens also makes the reader feel sorry for Magwitch by the way Magwitch is described. For example “a man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head.” This displays sympathy for Magwitch. The word ‘rag’ suggests he is a person who has no shelter and is living in rough conditions. This is the reason why he is threatening Pip because he is very desperate. I know this as it says “he ate the bread ravenously” this shows how desperate he is and also his hunger. Dickens also describes Magwitch as a convict.” with a great iron around his leg” This shows how cruelly treated he was when he was a convict
