Another clue to the age of the book is Pip’s description of there being ‘five little stone lozenges’ alongside his parents grave, representing his dead brothers, who passed away at an ‘exceedingly early’ age. The fact that so many of his family died at a young age suggests the book is set at a time before hospitals and modern medicines. Pip refers to his brothers deaths as giving up their ‘universal struggle’, (universal being life). This creates an atmosphere of depression and sadness as it is unusual for a young child to think of life this way. Such a negative and pessimistic view would be unusual for a child of modern times. The overall descriptions of graves and death give the paragraph a moody and slightly scary atmosphere.
The next paragraph is a brilliant description of the place where Pip is. Dickens uses descriptive language such as ‘raw’, ‘overgrown’, ‘dark’ and ‘scattered’ to create an atmosphere of the bleakness of the place and gives the reader a great impression of the places, loneliness and landscape. Dickens uses descriptive phrases such as ‘raw afternoon’, ‘bleak place overgrown with nettles’, ‘dark flat wilderness’ and ‘scattered cattle’ to create an unwelcoming and bleak atmospheric picture of this hostile environment he has created. Dickens creates mood and makes the reader feel sympathy for Pip in this paragraph by describing first the church and where Pip’s family are ‘dead and buried’, then the marshes, then the ‘low leaden line’ (the river), next he describes the ‘distant savage lair’ (a metaphor for the sea, a lair referring to the home of something vicious). Dickens lastly brings the descriptions of the images back to a ‘small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry’, referring to Pip, making him seem small and pathetic compared to his large, hostile, bleak surroundings and portraying to the reader his severe helplessness.
Dickens effectively creates a scary atmosphere in the next part of the chapter by starting off with a voice shouting, “Hold your noise.” The suddenness and unexpectedness of this line makes the reader genuinely shocked and surprised, thus making us relate to Pip’s horror. Dickens goes on to introduce the escaped convict into the story. We can make this assumption of the identity of the character by reading Pip’s description of the ‘fearful man, wearing coarse grey’ (suggesting he looks rough and his clothes are torn like he has been running) and ‘great iron on his leg’ (prisoners of Dickens era were forced to wear iron shackles on their legs and were kept on prison boats moored on the shore, we already know from the text that Pip lives near the sea). We can tell from this that he has escaped as the iron is still attached to his leg. We get a profile of the convict’s character from the evidence in the way he acts towards and talks to Pip. The convict uses such violent language as “keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat”, “You young dog” and “what fat cheeks you got, darn me if I couldn’t eat em!” This shows he is obviously a very dangerous and intimidating man. The convict also seizes Pip by the chin, turns him upside down to ‘empty his pockets’ and tilts him back so “his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine”. All this evidence shows the convict is sly and knows how to get what he wants by intimidation. He knows how to play on this small boys innocence by using violent language and brutality. He cleverly knows how to scare a little boy as he has obviously been previously studying Pip crying and sees his weakness, and an opportunity to abuse this knowledge. We can tell the convict is desperate and starving as Dickens uses adjectives such as ‘ravenously’ (describing the convict eating bread from his pocket), suggesting he has not eaten for a while. We can tell getting food is one of the convict’s main priorities when he asks/threatens Pip to bring him a file (presumably to get off the iron) and ‘wittles’ (scraps of food). The use of the dated word ‘wittles’ also reflects the influences of Dickens era.
Dickens describes the convict as re-enforcing his requests to Pip in an intimidating way in the next part of the chapter. The convict does this to make sure Pip doesn’t tell anyone about his presence, suggesting he is ‘on the run’. Dickens creates this affect by describing the convict as again playing on Pip’s innocence. The convict does this by confirming that he ‘ain’t alone’. As if the convicts extreme brutality and aggression isn’t terrifying enough for Pip, the convict states he has ‘a young man with him and in comparison with which young man I am an angel’.
Dickens gives more drama/horror to what the convict is saying by telling Pip he can ‘attempt to hide’ from the young man. He tells Pip he can ‘lock the door’, ’be warm in bed’, ‘think himself comfortable and safe’, but the young man will find him and ‘tear him open’. Dickens uses words such as ‘safe’ and ‘warm’ to create a comforting mood to the reader and to Pip, which accentuates the drama and violence of the end ‘tear him open.’ This terrifies Pip as the convict makes it seem that the small boy cannot even be safe in his own home/familiar surroundings. The phrase “I am keeping that man from harming you at the present moment, with great difficulty,” makes the atmosphere even more erie as it sounds as if the man is so vicious it is hard to hold him back.
In the next part of the story Dickens describes Pip watching the convict leaving the churchyard. Again we see a description of this horrible bleak place (i.e. ‘Among the nettles’ – ugly, harmful plants and ‘among the brambles’ – thorns, sharp, portraying the landscape). However this time we see how the surrounding’s depression have had an effect on the convict. For the first time we see a more hurt and vulnerable side of the convict. Pip describes him as hugging his ‘shuddering body’, ‘as if to hold himself together’, making the convict seem dishevelled and is if he is falling apart. He is also obviously feeling pain and loneliness, along with Pip and their environment. Next, dickens creates an extreme atmosphere of Pip being in a terrifying and hostile place with the description of ‘he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in”. This graphic and scary description coming from a young boy suggests Pip also has been affected by his hostile surroundings. It also gives a sense that the convict is close to death (being dragged into graves).
In the last section of the chapter, dickens creates a very dramatic visual image of Pip looking out at his surroundings. Dickens creates a striking vision of hell by describing Pip seeing the marshes as ‘a long black horizontal line’, then the rivers as another, ‘yet not nearly so broad, yet not so black’ and then the sky as ‘just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed.’ The descriptions of the colours red and black portray the vision of hell as the black represents death and the red blood/danger, these are colours often associated with pain, death and hell. Dickens describes the lines as ‘angry’, also suggesting the atmosphere is uneasy and volatile (like hell). Dickens adds to the drama of the description by adding the image of the gibbet (associated with death).
We can see how Pip must be frightened as we can relate to the horror of this well-decorated/descripted image. We also see Pip having a childlike imagination, when he pictures the convict being a dead pirate to which the chains on the gibbet ‘had once held’.
The chapter ends on an uneasy note, with Pip announcing his fear (‘Now I was frightened again’), bringing a sense of reality to the chapter, then him ‘running home without stopping’. This leaves the chapter full of mystery and encourages readers to find out what happens to Pip.
