I think that Dickens may have wrote this book to really show the world was like for him but disguising himself at the same time. Maybe he wasn’t meaning to refer to his past life experiences but because he will never forget these times it probably came out in his writing even if he didn’t mean it to. When Dickens wrote for a monthly magazine he probably thought, if he left the story in a cliff hanger or left the reader feeling that they want to know more, then the magazine would sell more copies. He may have used Pip for this purpose, by, in the way that he makes us feel sorry for him in places where the magazine issue may have ended. He would have used things like “still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us”. If the issue ended here then the reader will have just found out about Pip having to go to Satis House and will have just learned about Estella. The reader would want to know what the rest of the house is like and what happens to Pip while he is there. This quotation leaves the reader wandering if anything out to get Pip lies in the dark corridors. Dickens could be using the dark passageways as a way of showing how Pip felt about being in Satis House: he knows no-one; he is on his own and he doesn’t know what might happen to him. The dark corridors may be his thoughts about the place he s in and the way he feels about it all- very alone and not sure where he stands with the candle being his only hope, but there is hope. This could relate to when Dickens’ parents got arrested and he was left all alone in the dark, the corridors, with only the hope of seeing them and the chance of their release at heart, which could resemble the candle. Satis house would be laid out in a darker way than it would be today de to the time that the book was written. This was during the gothic era during which other books such as Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ were written. This gives you a feel of the time in which ‘Great Expectations’ was written in.
When Pip enters Satis house he is probably very afraid. This wasn’t helped by the treatment he faced from Estella.
Though she called me “boy” so often, with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.
This kind of grown-up and almost insulting behaviour from someone his own age must have made Pip feel very intimidated and worried of the impression he would give as he clearly likes her when he says “being a girl, and beautiful”. He may think that if he does not behave in a way that she would consider as appropriate and accepted behaviour of an adult then he would stand no chance in getting to know her better. This makes us feel sorry for him because he is, again, the under-dog. This time to a person, who happens to be the same age as him as apposed to the building and the surroundings that he is in.
As Pip gets over the original shock of being put somewhere he has never been with people he has never met before, he begins to take in the house and its surroundings. The house is a very scary place for Pip because he is not used to the vastness and also the dark corridors and hallways. “The first thing I noticed was that the passages were all dark and that she had left a candle burning there”. Had Pip been used to these surroundings in a great house then he would not have noticed these things but thought it to be normal. Pip comes from a poor family who live in a small house in the country which, again, shows that he would really not feel comfortable in a great house with dark rooms and corridors.
During Pips visit to Satis House he meets a woman called Mrs Haversham. Pip’s first impression of Mrs Haversham are that she is a strange lady who does nothing but sit in her room and feel sorry for herself. “I found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight to be seen in it”. This is the first thing Pip says in the book when he enters the room. He was probably expecting to go into an open room with large windows letting in the bright day from outside. Pip would definitely have been shocked to see Mrs Haversham sitting on her own in the dim light provided by many candles. When he sees Mrs Haversham he does think she is strange because he says, “With her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see”. This was probably quite an awkward moment for Pip as he almost certainly didn’t know how to react to seeing her, as he said, “Sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or will ever see”. His views of Mrs Haversham are quite likely to be changed as he sees that everything that she has by her or on her is aged and yellow. “Everything within my view which ought to be white, and had been white long ago, had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow”. This would seem very strange to Pip as most of the things in his house, that were meant to be white, were white and not allowed to age and go yellow as his strict sister-come-mother would not allow it. When Pip enters the room he says nothing of a greeting as he is so taken a-back by his surroundings and the woman sitting in the chair. When Mrs Haversham finally speaks and breaks the silence she does so in a way that shows to affection or welcoming. “Who is it?” This is what Mrs Haversham says in welcome to Pip. It’s not really what you would expect as a greeting so he probably felt a bit bashful.
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