This extract reflects life in the nineteenth century by the way the author describes the bleakness of the environment. Furthermore it gives the audience an idea of how criminals were treated back in Dickens’ time.
In the second extract, Pip is grown up. There is a sharp contrast between his life now and how Dickens presents him in chapter 1. Pip is now a highly intelligent and well educated gentleman who still has not heard any word that he believes might enlighten him on the subject of his expectations.
The convict, Abel Magwitch (now known as Provis) is about to return. The scene is set in a fairly dark room where the only diminutive source of light is a reading lamp. The effect of this is that it develops a lonesome scene where happiness seems to have gone astray.
The atmosphere in this scene, before Magwitch’s arrival, is quiet similar to of the first extract’s. In Pip’s words, Dickens describes the weather by applying repetition to the description, which helps to strengthen the sense of danger and insecurity in the audience before the arrival of the much despised convict, “It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets.”
“Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind”, this adds to the Pathetic Phallacy that Dickens is trying to put together. The audience at this instant suspect something terrible of happening; this creates a suspenseful yet vigorous scene. The genre reflected in this chapter is that of a mystery suspense story, “I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone” Pip’s statement of having a dull sense of being alone intensifies the atmosphere. Furthermore, it gives the audience a strong sense that something bad that was about to happen.
Pip now views and judges Magwitch from how he remembers of him in his childhood. It is indulgent to say that Pip’s remembrance of Magwitch in his childhood can only be described as being disturbing. Subsequently, Pip shows no intention in greeting Magwitch with a warm welcome. Further in this extract, we read that Pip is seeking to make it clear to Provis that he doesn’t want to know him.
He despises Provis for bullying him into stealing food and files from his own family. As we progress in this extract, we find out that Pip is confused by Provis’ actions because it has changed a great deal. In comparison to the first extract, Provis has changed from being an object of terror, to an astute and sensible man. It is important for the audience to realise that the main difference between these two extracts is the fact that the two characters’ roles have been swapped around, role-reversal.
After many years, Pip is now much higher in status than Magwitch and for Magwitch to turn up on Pips door and say that he is Pip’s benefactor is terrifying to Pip. Pip finds out that the money he was receiving was of a criminal’s and so he feels devastated. Besides being the suspense behind Pip’s rise to the high life, Magwitch also turned out to be the mystery behind Estella’s parentage. This adds to the sympathy that the audience feel towards Pip as they find out that the woman Pip loves is the daughter of a criminal. And not just any criminal, she turned out to the daughter of his child hood nightmare.
In this scene Magwitch looks around the room admiring the objects because he fells as though he had part of the luxurious things that stood in Pip’s room. The mood changes slightly from being dull, dark, and damp to becoming calm and stable. Pip gradually begins to feel that he has more power over the convict, and this confrontation.
In the first chapter the convict intimidates Pip. However in chapter 39 the convict moreover wants Pip to feel at ease. The reader’s reaction to Magwitch in this chapter is puzzling because of the big difference in character that Magwitch is showing as a former convict.
For me to be able to conclude this essay, I will need to carefully explain each character’s roles and actions in both extracts and how they affect the way the audience view each character.
Firstly, we need to be able to understand that punishments for crimes in Dickens’ times were much too harsh in comparison to now. Back then people were punished for petty crimes, like stealing bread to eat. A serious crime like murder would result in the criminal being hanged or executed. Where as now a days the offender would receive life imprisonment which is 25 years in jail.
As punishments were much harsher back in Dickens’ time, we have to be able to realise that a convict like Magwitch would at one time be desperate enough to make a run for freedom from the set punishments. If I was in Magwitch’s shoes, just by knowing the harsh punishment for my crime would be enough to prevent me from committing the crime again.
After managing to escape from the prison, Magwitch was desperate for help and he didn’t think anybody would voluntarily help a prisoner who had just escaped from prison. With reference to Magwitch’s role in the first extract, we now have to be able to understand why Magwitch was forced to act like an inhuman person towards Pip after escaping from the ship amongst other convicts. The course of Magwitch’s actions brought him food and drink to survive on. I personally think that the audience should feel sorry for Provis in second extract.
In the second extract, Dickens tries to make it as clear as he could to the audience in trying to show the guilt that Magwitch feels for how he treated Pip many years ago. Another of Dickens’ intentions is to make the reader feel sympathy for Provis. He does this by describing Magwitch’s body language and his words in this extract, e.g. “Yes,” he replied, “I do wish to come in master”. This shows the readers that Magwitch’s has sense of remorse towards Pip.
“I saw him the next moment, once more holding both his hands out to me.” We can work out from Magwitch’s body language that he is already showing Pip respect, and so is asking for Pip’s forgiveness. This extract again highlights the difference between the poor and the rich in Dickens’ London. In addition, this extract also reflects on the criminal justice system of the nineteenth century.
We can obviously see that Magwitch is acting much too different as a convict in front of Pip. And with reference to the criminal injustice system of the nineteenth century, it can also be stated that Magwitch’s fear of suffering punishments and imprisonment for such a long time has changed him completely.
Conclusion:
The point of view that Dickens was trying to convey to a nineteenth century audience is that the there will always be little difference between the poor and the rich. The big similarity between them is that both poor and rich people can be giving and greedy at one time as they both are human being with similar feelings and understanding. And that the only difference that separates them is money.
Dickens achieves this by portraying his main characters as rounded and realistic as he could. Magwitch and Pip are complicated, complex characters who change many times throughout this novel. Dickens always happens to have the unsurpassed way of expressing each characters roles and actions that stand in different positions in life each time around. The story is made even more gripping by Dickens’ ingenious ways of developing chilling moods along with the suspenseful scenes. If we were to closely analyse each of these scenes and the characters involved in them, we would be able to see that no matter what state each character is in, the only two things that distinctly presents a character in this novel is actions and reactions of character to other characters.
