Look carefully at the opening chapters of Great Expectations and explore some of the ways in which Dickens develops Pip's character - How is he affected by his initial encounters with Magwitch, Miss Havisham and Estella? How do different classes treat pip

He tells the majority of the story in first person retrospective which is where the author speaks as he is the character, constantly looking back on the previous event. It is important that the story is told like this as it gets the audience more involved in the story and they become more attached and feel his emotions more, as the author describes them as being personal, the reader also feels the emotions personally.

The writer structures the story of Pip's life in 3 main sections, before he had a benefactor and was destined to grow up as working class, when he received a large amount of money and used it very foolishly and the conclusion of his life where he finally shows his true self.

During the novel Pip learns many things as he matures and grows up. During Great Expectations Pip always learns from his mistakes. I think that Charles Dickens shows that Pip learns the true meaning of life. The opposite of Pip, Orlick, does not learn from his mistakes and after he kills Mrs Joe he tries to kill Pip and is arrested.

At the start of the book Pip meets Magwitch he is scared and he shows his childish and premature emotions. At one point during Great Expectations Pip refers to Magwitch as "my friend". This shows that Pip likes Magwitch, which is very strange considering he is an apparently dangerous convict who threatened Pip. But this also shows that Pip has been so isolated he wants to make a new friendship, even with Magwitch! He next meets Miss Havisham at Satis House. This visit is very important to Mrs Joe because she believes that she could possibly get some of Miss Havisham's wealth if Pip impresses her. It is also a very significant visit for Pip and it is his first experience of the upper class.

From the moment he is born he is destined to a working class life being apprenticed to Joe. This destiny ends when Jaggers rescues him from his present state of living. Now Pip starts his new life as a boy with great expectations, still young and unaware of what lies ahead. Here Charles Dickens displays Pip as being puerile one reason we know this is he is always afraid that he will be punished and if he does anything wrong he will somehow be found out.

As Charles Dickens develops Pip's character he changes the setting of his surrounding to the bustling city of London. Here he meets some new people and finds out what its like to have money. He gets educated and is taught to be a gentleman by Herbert. Here he still keeps contact with Miss Havisham and Estella. Soon after he becomes self indulgent and finds he has wasted all his money. His heart is then broken when Estella falls in love with Drummle. Its at this point in his life he realizes how badly he treated his family and he is very remorseful.

At the conclusion of Pip's life he is forced to hide Magwitch to protect him, this shows how Charles Dickens developed Pip into a more devious and also compassionate character. Considering his situation, Pip first becomes angry at Miss Havisham, who used him and deliberately led her relatives and himself into believing that he was destined for her fortune. But his anger soon turns to himself, when he realizes how badly he treated Biddy and Joe, his true friends. He saw Joe as common and low class when all the time he was being supported by the lowest of the classes, a convict. It is now that he also sees Miss Havisham kill herself as a result of the pain she has caused to Pip. He then goes back home only to see Magwitch kill Compeyson and he just escapes being killed by Orlick. He looks on in sorrow as he sees how unfairly Magwitch is treated at his trial, this scene shows how the author has developed Pip's emotions and how he can distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. He then returns to his previous life with all his expectations lost.

The different classes treat Pip extremly differently throughout the various stages in his life. At the begining of his life, the upper class treat Pip as a working class boy. Miss Havisham reguallary looks down on him, and ironicly upperclass Estella looks down on him and regulary mocks him throughout the begining of his life.