How does Dickens create sympathy for his characters in Great Expectations? Focus on Pip and one or two other characters you have studied.
Great Expectations was written in the era of Queen Victoria which was a time of progression and prosperity. However this was not true of everyone, there was a huge gap in society between the rich and the poor for example there was only education for the rich. The justice system was very harsh but that was also in favour of the rich. In this book Dickens reflects on society at the time and shows the unjust class divide.
I am going to focus on how Charles creates sympathy for the characters of Pip, Miss Havisham and Magwitch using the first and second extracts. Dickens uses the setting the place and time in which the story takes place, dialogue the words spoken by the characters that inform the reader of their personality, motivation and attitudes, and voice the choice made by the author to write either as in the first or third person to help him create sympathy towards the characters.
Firstly I am going to look at pip and how Dickens show sympathy for him in extract one. The setting of the first extract is in a dark and gloomy churchyard in the marsh country down by a river. The place is overgrown with nettles which show that it is not well kept. Pip is standing in the middle of this churchyard next to tombstones of which Author tells us are of Pips five little brothers all lined up next to each other with also his mother and father. This instantly brings sympathy for Pip to the reader as we now know that he is an orphan. The author then continues describing the setting of where Pip is “intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river and that the distance savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea”. Dickens creates more sympathy towards Pip in the line “and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip”. The voice that Dickens is using in the first few paragraphs is as an observer in the third person. Dickens then changes to the first person when Magwitch discovers pip and this also helps him show greater sympathy along with Dickens choice of dialogue “O! Don’t cut my throat sir” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir. We know that Pip is very scared when it says “I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling”. And “I was dreadfully frightened and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands”. We understand Pips attitude towards Magwitch as being fully co-operative with him and trying his best to be polite as he repeatedly says “yes sir” which shows that he is very scared not to step out of line with Magwitch and do anything wrong. The extract concludes with Dickens back into the third person and saying “But, now I was dreadfully frightened again and ran home without stopping”. This shows us that Pip is still very scared about the ordeal that he has just gone through and by this it makes us more sympathetic towards him.
