“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. For example
“The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life”
This was when Magwitch had told him to do some things for him and was now leaving. Pip imagined all of this. It is normal for children around his age about 8 to imagine weird things like that.
Pip respects Magwitch even when he is threatening him. Pip calls him “sir”. This shows that Pip respects his elders as well as that he is very scared of him. The settings where all of this takes place is at his parents grave. The place is dark as Dickens writes
“The dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates”
This tells us that the graveyard and the marsh are in a horrible state. The graveyard is not looked after. Also the effect on the reader is that it shows a dark gloomy damp place. At those time children were treated badly and hardly people ever cared for orphans. It was a hard life for them to live.
Also at that time they had what they called social class. There was working class people who had to work all the time and no rights hardly, middle class people who owned lands and house and worked very little, and upper class people who were very rich and never work. The worst is called under class which Magwitch is. Pip is a working class boy. We find out later in the novel that Pip has a benefactor which I will tell you later in the assignment. We also find out that later in the novel that when Pip has stopped studying he goes to live in London and work there, and that he is now in the middle class. Also in the novel we find out that Pip doesn’t want to go back to his home and meet his sister. I think why he doesn’t want to go back because he doesn’t want to relive his old memories. How is sister used to care for him or what she made him do. Or maybe he is being cruel to his sister. Now we know that Pip is kind but sometimes can be cruel. Pip is multilayered. What I find striking and memorable about Pip is that in his childhood he is kind and patient and when he grows up to be in the middle class he doesn’t want to see his sister anymore. This shows that there are things we did not know about Pip that were quite surprising. Also when Magwitch threatens him in all sorts of way Pip even then calls him respectfully by calling him “sir”.
Magwitch is an escaped convict. We do not find out why he was sent to jail or how he escaped. We know in the beginning of the novel that Magwitch is cruel and a bit crazy like when he says
“I wish I was a frog. Or a eel”
Magwitch might have gone a bit crazy in prison. The way Magwitch talks is not right either for example
“That young man has a secret way pecoolier to himself”
Or
“I find it wery hard…”
The way that Magwitch talks is because he is not educated he speaks phonetically you could say, or a person how is learning to speak English. When Magwitch meets Pip for the first time at pips parents grave Pip thinks he is a serial murderer, because of Magwitch was saying to him. Magwitch threatens Pip he says
“Or I’ll have you heart and liver out”
Pip is very scared of what is happening to him.
At the start of the novel the readers opinion about Magwitch is that he is a low life. Who threatens children for the fun of it or is totally crazy. But later on in the novel we find a quite surprising thing about Magwitch. The author Charles Dickens describes Magwitch clearly as
“A fearful man, in all coarse grey, with a great iron leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head.”
The words that I have made bold are the adjectives that Dickens has used to describe him. This gives a vivid picture of Magwitch and at the same time makes it interesting to read. As I have told already that Magwitch is from the under class which are the poorest of all. They have nowhere to work and no one would want them to work for them.
The other side of Magwitch is that he is kind and will pay back the good deed to someone who has helped him. For example he helps Pip he is the benefactor of Pip. We find out in the novel later on that Magwitch had remembered what Pip had done for him when he was in need of help. Also in the novel we find out that Miss Havisham is the benefactor of Magwitch. It was her who helped Magwitch flee to another country and make him work which he then made a lot of money. Pip is quite shocked when he finds out that it was Magwitch who had been helping all the way long.
We now know that Magwitch was cruel but also kind and warm hearted. Magwitch is also multi layered just like Pip. What I find memorable and striking about Magwitch is that he is cruel but also kind. I think no one would have guesses that Magwitch was Pips benefactor. This makes the novel very exciting and makes you wonder if there are any more surprising parts to the novel that the readers do not know about.
Miss Havisham is an old women who is not married. She is about in her 40s. Her groom left her on their wedding night. She is very obsessed about this matter. We also know from the novel that Miss Havisham does not like men at all. She thinks that all of them are the same, that they will all leave you in the end. Miss Havisham adopts a child named Estella. She is also teaching her not to like boys.
Pip goes to Miss Havishams for the first time to play with Estella. We find out that Miss Havisham orders him just like all the other people for example
“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”
These are her first commands to Pip when he enters her house. Then Pip looks at a person who is wearing bride costume but all torn and dirty. Pip describes it as
“I saw the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers…”
The effect of this is that it makes a picture in your mind that there is a bride wearing very old clothes like as if something terrible has happened or she is insane.
At first Pip does not know that is Miss Havisham. But soon he finds out who it is. Also Pip describes how the room was like
“no glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it…”
This shows that she has hardly stood up from her chair let alone clean the place. This shows that she is very lazy and doesn’t like moving around. After a while Miss Havisham talks to Pip about things. She asks Pip where her hand is
“do you know what I touch here….
Yes ma’am
What do I touch?
Your heart”
Miss Havisham is trying to tell Pip about here why she is in that state. Then when Estella come to play with Pip she makes fun out of him, and Pip goes that he heard Miss Havisham say to Estella that break his heart. We know from this Miss Havisham is trying to teach Estella that do not trust men or boys at the end they will all leave you. This tells us that Miss Havisham doesn’t want her to become like her. She doesn’t want her spend her life in a chair just like Miss Havisham. Also one thing that Pip notices is that all the clocks are stopped at a certain time twenty to nine. Pip presumes that must have been the time when her groom left her. What I find memorable and striking in Miss Havisham is that she is commanding everyone except Estella and she has no interest to marry again. She might have been a kind considerate woman but from what had happened to her it had changed her entirely.
At the end of the novel Pip grows up to be at good looking gentlemen and marries Estella who was also trying to end up being like her. My most memorable and striking character would be Magwitch. Why I think him is because when Magwitch meets Pip for the first time he is cruel and threatening to him and later on in the novel we found out that Magwitch is pips benefactor. We learn from this that people can be multilayered. If a 19th century reader read the novel I think he/she would choose Magwitch as striking. Because they would think he is odd, first he scares Pip. Then he becomes his benefactor. They would find Miss Havisham memorable because she is not married yet. Lots of people get rejected but she took it too far. Also at 19th if you weren’t married In your easy 20’s then there was no hope of you being married again.