Look at three chapters from "Great Expectations", discuss how Dickenscreates characters that are both memorable and striking. Make sure you refer toat least three.

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English                                                 Assignment 1

Look at three chapters from “Great Expectations”, discuss how Dickens creates characters that are both memorable and striking. Make sure you refer to at least three.  

The assignment that I am writing about is Great Expectation which was written in 1880-1881 and the author is Charles Dickens. The main three characters that I will be talking about are Pip, Magwitch and Miss Havisham.

Firstly before that I want to write a bit about the history of publishing at the time Charles Dickens. At that time publishing books were totally different than at present time. At that time they used to have a system called triple deckers. This was that when people wrote books they made three parts to them like volumes, and they used to sell them one after the other. This meant that at that time people were poor and couldn’t afford to buy books except the rich people. So what they did was they made three parts and sold them one after the other. They had a cliff hanger at the end making the reader want  to buy next volume of the book. The authors made a lot of money this way as well.

The characters in this novel are strong as well as emotional.

I am going tell a brief description of the character which I will be talking about later in the assignment. Pip who is an orphan lives with his sister (she is married). He is very emotional. Magwitch is an escaped convict who has a good side as well as a dark side.  And lastly there is Miss Havisham who is about 50 and is not married. This is because her groom left her on her wedding night.

        Pips real name is Philip, he is an orphan who lives with his sister. Pip is a very emotional boy. We know this because when Magwitch threatens him that he will kill him if he doesn’t bring the equipment he needs. The author Charles Dickens writes that Pip is to cry

“partly to keep myself upon it; partly to keep myself from crying”

 This shows that Magwitch is threatening beat him up and Pip is trying not to cry. Any boy at his situation would feel scared and would want to cry. Also when Pip goes to play at Miss Havishams with Estella (she is adopted by Miss Havisham) we find out that at the end of the visit Pip cries and is angry and furious of himself because Estella had been making fun of him, making Pip think that she was superior than him

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“as I cried, I kicked the wall and took a hard twist at my hair”

This quote tell us that Pip was incredibly angry and did not now what to do so he started to himself. He was hitting himself really because Estella said things about him the way he looks like

”And what coarse hands he has. And what thick boots!”

  Before going to Miss Havishams house he was happy the way he looked he liked his life, but when he met Estella this changed all his views of himself.

        

Pip also has an vivid imagination. ...

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