Great Expectations

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How Does Dickens Engage the Sympathy of the Reader in Pip's First Encounter with Mrs. Havisham?

Great Expectations is a novel written by Charles Dickens in 1861. The novel follows the life of young Pip through his childhood to his dreams of becoming a gentleman. At the beginning of the novel Pip is an orphan who lives with his sister Mrs. Joe and her husband Joe. Great Expectations deals with issues such as social class, love, expectations, and sympathy throughout the novel. Dickens creates sympathy from the beginning of the novel when Pip is approached by a wanted criminal whilst he was mourning his parents' deaths in the churchyard. Magwitch threatens Pip for his life to bring him a rasp and some food. Pip steals them from Mr. Joe to give to Magwitch and after giving them to Magwitch, scared Pip runs home.  Later he is invited to play at Miss Havisham’s house that is known to be rich and she was also rejected on her wedding day. Pip then falls in love with Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter Estella, who has been brought up to brake men’s hearts, but Pip finds Estella very proud, pretty and also insulting. Throughout this assignment I am going to explore and explain the techniques Dickens uses to engage the sympathy of the reader.

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Dickens creates a setting which is tense, Gothic and daunting when Pip first encounters with Miss Havisham inside the house. An example of this, “…large room, well lighted with wax candles.” This shows that the room has lost its soul and spirit and Pip is nervy because it reminds him of the day he visited his parent’s graves on Christmas Eve and first encounters with the escaped convict, Magwitch. There is also a contrast between the size of the room and the size of Pip. The house wasn’t daunting because of the wax candles in fact, candles in a dark ...

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