How effective are the opening chapters in Great Expectationsand Jane Eyre?

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Troy Franklin

How effective are the opening chapters in

 Great Expectations

and Jane Eyre?

In my essay i will be explaining and comparing the opening paragraphs of "Great Expectations" ang "Jane Eyre". The author of "Great Expectations" is Charles Dickens (1812-70). Dickens was a middle class man who was well known and wealthy. He had his own magazine, called "All the year round", in which he published "Great Expectations" over a period of 59 weeks; one chapter a week was published his magazine. He wrote it in 1860 and it was published between December 1860 and August 1861.

"Jane Eyre" was published in 1847 and written by Charlotte Bronte but under the name of Currer Bell because it was hard for a women in the Victorian times to publish a book. She was born in Yorkshire but lived a short life of only 39 years (1816-55). It was not just her in her family that dies at a young age, she had two sisters who did not make it to adulthood. She also had a brother and two surviving sisters. Her father was a Vicar. She was not the only literate person in the family; her sisters also had books published.

"Great Expectations" starts off with Pip all alone in a deserted graveyard looking at his immediate, relatives gravestones. Then a man threatens him "...I'll cut your throat!" The man is an escaped prisoner and instructs Pip to help him by getting his brother-in-laws tools to get his shackles off. Pip agrees to help him so that the prisoner does not kill him. He says if Pip tells anyone that he has seen the man he is going to be killed by a "young man"

Jane is an orphan living with the Reed family. She is being bullied by John Reed, and is scared of him. Mrs Reed ignores the bullying even though it happens in front of her more frequently than behind her back. Jane has a fight with John Reed because she was reading a book behind the curtain, and when John found her he threw the book at her which made her fall and hit her head on the door. After this Jane retaliated and called him a "wicked and cruel boy" then they broke out into a fight. Mrs Reed saw this fight and instructed her servant to put Jane into the "red room".

Both "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre" are set in the Victorian times. Pip and Jane are both orphans and are threatened with the use of violence. Pip is treatened with the use of mental violence by the escaped prosoner. Where as Jane is threatened with physical violence from John Reed.

"Great Expectations" opens in the churchyard, in the late afternoon, deserted apart from Pip who is looking at the gravestones. The churchyard is in the marsh country down by the river. The churchyard is very dull and dingy and it is also very neglected, "black place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard". This place is dull and probably not many people visit the graveyard. Nobody has bothered doing any gardening which makes it a very steriotypical graveyard.

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"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 ...

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