Bernardo Veiga
Class 9B
Great Expectations
In the extract of the novel “Great Expectations”, Charles Dickens conveys many images of the characters and environment. Throughout the whole passage Dickens focuses only in descriptions, transmitting to the reader a perfect compilation of what the scene is all about.
Exploring the passage, good reasons can be found to support the feeling that Pip, the young boy, has when he enters the house. As Pip is the narrator of the story a close view of the surroundings is conveyed. Right at the beginning of the passage, when the boy enters the house, he comments on the bizarre and suspicious chains that crossed the great front entrance, that the passages were all dark and that the strange women that came to his reception only had one candle to light the way up to the staircase. Pip is already frightened of the house and of the people who live there. When the lady that was in his company told him to go inside the room and he responded in shyness that she could go first she answered him: “Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in” that was a very imperialistic attitude and made the boy even more scared when she leaves him alone upstairs taking the candle with her. The lady has a very imperious attitude because it is normal for her to live that way, but she doesn’t realize it is a whole new environment and situation for Pip. In this first part, before Pip entering the room Dickens starts to convey us what the scene would be led into and what should be waiting Pip after he enters the room. Dickens hasn’t quite yet started describing so much the other characters but he has given many images of how the house is like and how the people that live in it are like.
