Great Expectations. Write about two incidents in Great Expectations, which display Dickens' ability to create atmosphere.

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Great Expectations

Great Expectations.

Write about two incidents in Great Expectations, which display Dickens’ ability to create atmosphere.

The two incidents from Great Expectations I have chosen to write about are Pip’s first meeting with the convict and Pip’s first meeting with Miss Havisham.

   In the first of these incidents Dickens is successful in creating an atmosphere of fear tinged with a hint of humour.

At the beginning of chapter one the mood is melancholy. Dickens is describing Pip as an orphan who has never seen his deceased parents and siblings. Humour is then introduced. Pip says that he thought he could learn what his parents looked like “from their tombstones”. The script on the tombstone makes Pip imagine his father as a “square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair”. He conjures up a picture of his mother as being “freckled and sickly”. The shape of his little brother’s graves is likened to lozenges. This forces Pip to believe his siblings were the same shape as their graves and “born on their backs with their hands in their trouser-pockets”.  

Dickens creates a dark feeling by describing the surrounding area as “bleak” and “overgrown”. He says that it was a “raw afternoon” and that the marshes are a “dark flat wilderness”. His writing is very atmospheric. The use of long sentences and semi colons makes it a slow read and helps build the suspense.

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    The sudden exclamation: “Hold your noise” jolts the reader from the gloomy, menacing opening scene. “Keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat” these are threatening words delivered by what is described as a “fearful man” who has a leg iron and is obviously an escaped convict on the run.

Dickens’ use of long descriptions and short quick dialogue increases the feeling of terror and breathlessness. Whilst the man is frightening to Pip he also very nervous himself and the narrative still manages to inject some humour to the situation.

The convict, who we later ...

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