How does Dickens present Pip’s childhood in the first three chapters of “Great Expectations”?

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How does Dickens present Pip’s childhood in the first three chapters of “Great Expectations”?

At the time or era in which Dickens wrote “Great Expectations”, children were exploited, they were used for jobs such as chimney sweeps because they were small and could get up the chimney easily, or put to work in factories because they had small hands so they could make things. Children were usually ignored and there was lot of infant mortality. Pip lives in Kent by the marshes with his sister and a blacksmith. Pip has never seen his parents and feels very lonely; his sister has brought him up “by hand”. Pip would have been considered lucky to have escaped infant mortality, unlike his five brothers who are buried in the graveyard. Pip is asking questions most of the time about his parents or just inquiring about something unknown which his sister doesn’t like. She is very impatient and doesn’t see things from a child’s point of view. Pip’s sister doesn’t support Pip at all; on the other hand the blacksmith, Pip’s sister’s husband, is friendly towards Pip. Pip is very confused about his parents. He visits them at the graveyard and by reading or looking at the way the writing is put on the grave, he makes up his family with his imagination and creates his own identity.

        Pip lives down by the marshes in Kent. In the book, it is described as a, “dark flat wilderness”. The book also mentions there are “scattered cattle feeding”. Pip spends most of his time around the churchyard, which is a very bleak and depressing place for a young boy. Pip is associated with death because of his parents’ death and his brothers. The churchyard is “intersected with dykes and mounds and gates”. The river is described as “The low leaden line”. The sea is said to be, “The distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing”. The image from Pip’s feelings about this conveys that he is frightened and lonely. Pip’s childhood experiences have made him very nervous and easily frightened. As Dickens brings in the character of the convict, threatening to cut Pip’s throat, Pip “pleaded in terror”, for his life. He is very polite to the convict Magwitch: “If you would kindly please to let me keep up-right, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more”. Pip lives in a time when a lot of nasty things could happen. Pip is often scared at night and imagines things. Pip is very sensitive. Dickens reveals later in the book that it could have been a result of his sister’s discipline or just his nature.

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Dickens describes Mrs.Joe as having “black hair and eyes”. She has an odd “redness of skin” and Pip imagines she washes herself “with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap”. Mrs.Joe is “tall and bony”. She always wears an apron, which is filled with “pins and needles”, which makes her feel powerful and dominant over Joe. Due to the twenty-year age gap, she doesn’t really understand Pip, the way he thinks, his constantly asking questions. If I was Mrs.Joe now, I would take a course in children’s psychology. Pip had been brought up “by hand”, which Pip takes to mean ...

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