"Jane Eyre" opens in a rainy, winter's afternoon inside the Reeds house. Jane is in the breakfast room reading a book behind a curtain "Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass". The Reeds house is Troy Franklin
quite expensive because in Victorian times it would be very expensive to have scarlet drapery. At the very start of the chapter it says they went for a walk in the morning "We had been wondering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning". Although the Reeds house is nice they have not spent time on their garden because the bushes have no leaves.
The atmosphere in "Great Expectations" is very tense and full of terror. Pip is trembling because he is scared that the "young man" will kill him. The escaped prisoner threatens Pip because he knows that Pip is scared of him and then Pip will help him. This keeps the readers interest and makes them want to read on because Pip is probably scared of being ina graveyard at night anyway. Then the prisoner threatens him, which adds to the tension of Pip being scared and makes the reader want to find out what the prisoner is going to do to him. After this he threatens Pip again saying that if he does ot keep quiet about it he will get a "young man" to kill him. This makes yoy want to read on again to find out if there is a young man at all and if Pip tells ayone about it.
The atmosphere in "Jane Eyre" is extremely towards the end. The tension rises when Jane stands up to John Reed and they have a fight. After this Mrs Reed tells her servant to put Jane in the "Red Room". This engages the reader and makes the want to read on because this is the first time we have heard about the red room, so we want to find out what the red room is, where it is and how long will Jane be in there for.
In the first chapter of "Great Expectations" there are only two main characters used. Firstly there is Pip, he comes across as a very quiet and emotional boy "...and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to dry, was Pip." He is sittingon the tombstone crying because he is scared of the noise of the wind rushing from the sea. Pip is a very sterotypical victim because he agrees with the prisoner so he survives. I think Pip will survive the prisoner because all he has to do is fetch a couple of tools to him. Although i do not think Pip will be able to handle being scared incase the "young man" turns up one day.
The prisoner comes across nasty and heartless straight away "Hold your noise!"..."Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!" Pip is crying and the prisoner has no symathy and tells him to shut up and then afterwards he threatens to kill him. The prisoner is a very stereotypical "baddie" because he picks on somebody who is younger, smaller and weaker then him. He also makes up that somebody will kill Pip if he says a word just to keep Pip quiet, so he stays out of trouble. The prisoner makes you want to read on to see if he kills Pip when he brings the tools or wheather we will see him again in the book.
"Jane Eyre" uses three main characters in the opening chapter. Jane is very quiet and a lone, she is not a typical 10 year old. "I returned to my book-Bewick's History of British Birds". Normal children of Janes age usually read fictional stories. She is very scared of John Reed "every nerve I feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrank when he came near me". This is very stereotypical of a victim to be scared of the bully. I do not think that Jane will survive John Reed because whatever John does Mrs Reed ignores it because she does not care about Jane and she loves John. Jane makes us want to read on to see how she copes with the the red room and when, or if, Troy Franklin
she comes out how will she cope with the bulying.
John Reed comes across as a very spoilt and gready character "Now I'll teach you to rummage my book-shelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me." John is saying that every book in the library belongs to him eventhough he aint the only person who lives in the house. John is spoilt by his aunt, she lets him get away with anything even bullying Jane "What a fury to fly at Master John!" He gets away with a fight that is cause by him. John is a very stereotypical "baddie" because he targets the weak and the opposite sex so that he will be confident to win. John makes us want to read on to see if he takes the bulling a step furher.
We do not learn much from Mrs Reed in the opening chapter, all we learn is taht she spoils John Reed and favours him over Jane "You are a dependant mamma says." This is saying that if it was not for Mrs Reed Jane would not be able to survive. I do not think we learn enough of Mrs Reed for her to make us read on.
Both opening chapters make use of surprisingly similar themes. One of which they both share is the theme of violence.
In "Great Expectations", Pip is the one being threatened with violence by the escaped prisoner. The escaped prisoner threatens Pip with death and he threatens him by saying a "young man" is going to kill him "but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open." The prisoner keeps mentioning the young man to scare Pip so he deffantly helps him. He threatens Pip with death when he says "Or I'll have your heart and liver out!" Pip is the victim here there is a victim in "Jane Eyre". Jane is also a victim of violence but she is not just threatened, Jane is physically abused. John Reed bullies Jane and he also hits her, "He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder."
The second theme they share is the theme of loss of family and Jane and Pip are both orphans. We learn that Pip, in "Great Expectations", has loss of family because it opens with Pip looking at his family's gravestones "five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long." These are the tombstones of his five little brothers. Jane has also experienced death in her family, her mother and father have dies "You are a dependant, mamma says; you have no money; your father left you none". Jane is now an orphan and because she was left no money. She has to depent on the Reeds and that is why they treat her so badly.
Another theme they share is crime without punishment. In "Great Expectations" Magwitch, the escaped prisoner, gets awat with escaping from prison. The only person who could have prevented this could have been Pip, but Pip was too scaredof the "young man" that he kept quiet. In "Jane Eyre" John Reed also escapes punishment. He gets away with bullying and hitting Jane. It is the same in "Jane Eyre" as in "Great Expectations"; one person could of prevented the escape. Mrs Reed chooses to ignore it, when Jane and John have a fight she punishes Jane when it was really John who started it "What a fury to fly at Master John!"
The final theme they share is the theme of love and the the two both having a happy ending. In "Great Expectations" Pip finally finds love, after all those years of torment, Troy Franklin
in Estella. Also in "Jane Eyre", Jane finds out what it feels like to be loved, and finally marries Rochester.
I think the opening paragraph of "Great Expectations" is more sucessful because in my opinon a book needs a good setting which grabs your attenion from the start. In my opinion a churchyard is a stronger setting than a breakfast room because a graveyard is more scarey and more could happen there.
I feel that "Great Expectations" has a stronger opening because it gets straight to the action "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!" This gets us grabbed because this is the first we hear about the prisoner and he makes a big impact straight away. We also want to know why he is threatening Pip.
In "Jane Eyre" it takes a long time to get to the action and the setting is not very exciting. The action starts right at the end of the chapter with the fight between Jane and John "it hit me, and i fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it." This is the first sign of bullying happening.
John Reed in "Jane Eyre" is a good charater which makes us want to read on because he is agressive towards Jane and bully's her and we want to know to what extent the bullying will increase and if he will ease off and stop the bullying. We also want to read on to see how Jane will cope with the bullying or if she will get her own back.
Although in "Great Expectations" the escaped prisoner keeps us on the edge when he keeps threatening Pip. We wonder whether he will carry out what he is threatening, we also wonder why he was put in prison and if he really has a "young man"
to watch Pip or if the prisoner is going to come back.
Pip also makes us want to read on because we want to find out if Pip is going to tell anybody about the prisoner, if Pip will meet back up with the prisoner with his brother-in-laws tools to help the prisoner and how will Pip cope with the pressure of keeping a big secret.
I think the cliff hanger in "Jane Eyre" is more sucessful because in "Great Expectations" we can almost guess what is going to happen next, we can predict that Pip is going to help the prisoner and the prisoner has made up the young man to scare Pip so he helps him.
In "Jane Eyre" it is more of a cliff hanger because more questions have to be answered later on in the book. We need to know; what the red room is; how long will Jane be in there for; and is the bullying from John Reed going to get worse.
I think that "Great Expectations" is more sucessful because it has more of an effective plot which would make us want to read on. I do not feel that "Jane Eyre" has a strong enough plot to keep the readers attenion and it would not make us want to read on.