Right at the start the point that Pip is lonely is shown by him being in the graveyard with his both his parents and his 5 brothers graves. This makes him an orphan and he cries while he is there. Words like raw, bleak and overgrown are used to describe pip’s feelings.
The point of Sandra being lonely isn’t emphasized right at the start like Pip’s loneliness but later you see that she hasn’t got any friends. She follows people about and cannot think for herself because if someone else does something she will do it too. She has problems talking to Mrs Rutter and Kerry Stevens. “The girl poked in a crack of fluff” this shows she is embarrassed about talking to Mrs Rutter.
As I have described Pip is young and therefore small, weak and vulnerable. In the story it describes the man easily picking him up and having Pip in control. Pip is very scared of the old man. “Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” Pip pleaded in terror and answered his questions timidly. He sat on the tombstone trembling.
Sandra on the other hand is older and stronger but she is emotionally weak. This links with loneliness with her having few friends and not talking much. Sandra was scared of Packers End because of the German plane. She is scared when Mrs. Rutter talks about what she and her sister did after finding the plane and also when she realizes the world is a dark and scary place
Both Pip and Sandra have vivid imaginations. However Pip thinks of the world as a dark place. Pip imagines the environment using the brambles to hurt the man. “picking his way among the nettles and among the brambles that bound the green mounds”. “nettles” and “brambles” are both things that will hurt you and Pip imagines these hurting the old man. Also he imagines the man is a pirate because of his clothes. “an old rag tied round his head”. “as if he were a pirate come to life”. “Pirate” is a scary word as pirates hurt people and have no feelings. “come to life” is a good example of Pip’s vivid imagination.
Sandra imagines the world to be a perfect world where she is perfect. Throughout the story she imagines herself with her husband in a perfect house, a pony and two children, a boy and a girl with fair hair. “A little white house peeping over a hill, with a stream at the bottom of a crisp green lawn”. This is a perfect place in the country where she dreams of living. She also remembers her mum being perfect. She wants everything to be clean and neat and tidy. But Sandra does imagine the wolves and witches when she is in Packers End.
Both Pip Sandra encounter older characters. Pip meets Magwich and Pip is very scared of him. Sandra meets Mrs Rutter and views her as a nice old lady. Pip was in the grave yard with his 5 dead brothers and dead parents when a man shouts at him. Pip sees him as “A fearful man, all in coarse gray with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat and broken shoes”. Pip basically describes him as a poor but strong beaten up man. The word “fearful” gives the impression Pip is scared of him and worried what may happen to himself. “A man with no hat” means he is poor as in Victorian times anybody with any money would have a hat. Later in the story though Pip realizes he is not such a horrible man and that he just wants to get away from it all when he leaves and says “I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!” Sandra also views people by their appearance. So when Sandra sees Mrs Rutter her initial reaction is that she is a sweet old lady. “She seemed composed of circles, a cottage loaf of a women with a face below which chins collapsed one into another”. “Composed of circles” means she is fat which Sandra views as kind and giving. Sandra gets scared when Mrs Rutter is telling them about her horrible story and realizes Mrs Rutter isn’t such a nice woman at the end. “Mrs Rutter licked her lips” This sounds like she is satisfied that people are dying outside her house. This connects with when Magwich licked his lips when he says he is going to eat Pip.
At the end Pip is confused and worried when he is going home. He is confused about the man saying “I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!” after the way he treated Pip. He is also worried about the young man Magwich was talking about. Finally realizes not everything is as it seems. Sandra used to think of the world as a perfect place, she use to think all old people are nice. Now Mrs Rutter has told her a horrible story about her not helping out young men when they were dying and scaring Sandra, Sandra now thinks of the world as a dark place with horrible people in it and she also realizes not everything is as it seems.
Pip and Sandra both have terrible times in their stories. After being scared, threatened, nearly attacked and being forced to go home and steal some food for him Pip is ready to run home. After realizing the world isn’t such a wonderful place and being scared at Mrs Rutter’s house Sandra is also ready to go home.
Pip is an orphan and very lonely. He spends a lot of time in the graveyard and makes things up about his parents and brothers. Sandra has a family and friends. When she was younger a group of them sometimes played near the woods together and now her “set” at school belong to the Good Neighbours Club. But her daydreams of a perfect future may suggest that she sometimes feels lonely.
Sandra has a high opinion of herself and thinks everything in life will be perfect. Pip is more honest about himself and does not expect too much. They both judge people by their appearance, Pip Magwitch, Sandra, the old lady Kerry and Pat. They both agree with other people’s views of them. Magwitch says Pip has fat cheeks and he agrees. Sandra accepts she is a “nervy type because her mother says so.
Both Sandra and Pip have vivid imaginations and are scared about some places. Now that Sandra is older she is more frightened by actual events.
Overall we see how much one person affected their lives with both of them realizing that not everything is always as it first seems.
