His first name is Phillip, but when he was small he could only say Pip. ‘I could only manage to say Pip.’ When we meet him, he is sitting on a gravestone in the churchyard of the small country village one December afternoon. His parents are dead, this would be the reason for the small boy sitting in a cemetery, and he lives with his sister who is more than twenty years older than him. ‘Who do you live with’ the convict demanded ‘With my sister, sir, wife of Joe Gargery.’ Knowing this and that his sister ‘brought him up by hand’ we can understand that Pip probably had a very difficult childhood, never taking about his parent or knowing what they look like. In this part of the story, Pip is still a very young child, probably between eight and ten years of age. I know this, as only a small child would believe the convict’s threat of ‘I travel with a man who roasts boy hearts and eats them he will find you.’ Since Mrs. Joe Gargery brought him up ‘by hand’, he is very scared of her, but he will rather face his sister than the escaped convict therefore obeys the convict’s demand and steel the food and a file. ‘I was in terror of my sister who would soon discover that I had stolen her food.’
Mrs. Joe Gargery was a tall and thin women with black hair and eyes, who did not poses much beauty and was very proud of the fact that she brought poor old Pip up ‘by hand’. ‘She had a very hard back hand and used it freely on her husband as well as me.’ She was married to the village blacksmith Joe Gargery and thought that the two men caused her many trouble that she could easily prevent herself, and frequently complained. Joe Gargery was almost the complete opposite of his wife. He had a soft heart, with fair hair and blue eyes who accepted her scolding. ‘ Joe, on the other hand, was a gentle, kind man’
In this first part of the novel, the plot is as follows: When the convict asks Pip with threats to bring him food and a file without telling anybody about him, young Pip quickly obeys and runs home as fast as his can. ‘Then I ran home as fast as I could’ being terrified of his sister, the only thing that Pip can think about that evening, was how horrible it would be when his sister finds out that he stole her food. ‘I was in terror of my sister who would soon discover that I had stolen her food.’ The next morning, he then steels the food and takes it to the convict, just like he had promised the evening before. When he arrives at the cemetery, he bumps into a second escaped convict how immediately turns and run. After telling the first convict about the second and seeing the look upon his face, he the quickly decides to go home. ‘I found him half asleep and thought it was you…I’ll smash his face’
The language used in this novel, it old Victorian English as this is the time period in which Charles Dickens Lived and wrote all his great novels. It is a very formal English and is never used in every day live any more.
This is a great novel, but you can expect that from an amazing author like Charles Dickens and I am glad to have been set a task on a book with such great value and popularity.
