As a whole the settings in Chapter 1 makes for quite a threatening environment, not somewhere anyone would want to be alone, let alone a little boy.
The settings in chapter 39 are very different from those of chapter 1. The place is now a rented apartment in London, occupied by Pip and Pocket, who is a friend of Pip. At this point in the book, Pocket is away for a few days on business. The apartment is well furnished and has many books on shelves. The apartment was situated at the top of a house, quite close to the River Thames. The staircase up to the apartment is lit by wall-mounted lamps, probably candles rather than gas. This gives us another insight into nineteenth century life, as in the modern day we would have electric light bulbs as oppose to gas lamps or candles.
All this being said, these were a few similarities between the two chapter settings, namely the weather. As in chapter 1, the weather in chapter 39 is stormy and wet
It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet;
So furious had been the gusts that the high buildings in town had had the lead stripped of their roofs.
Both of these quotes tell us about the atrocious weather conditions, but the last one also gives an idea of life in the eighteen hundreds as it talks about the lead being stripped off the roofs of buildings. The most commonly used roofing material for modern buildings is slate, but in Pip’s day, lead would have been a normal site on the tops of buildings.
The time of day in chapter 39 (11:00pm) means that it is going to be dark, as it was in chapter 1. Also, the fact that the street lamps and staircase lamps had been blown out would add to the darkness.
Although the weather in chapter 39 is not brilliant, the settings are a lot nicer than those in chapter 1, due to it being set indoors, which provides shelter from the storm, and the well furnished apartment, which is a lot nicer than out on the marshes.
In chapter 1 we are told Pip is an orphan. We are not told this directly, but by being told, “ my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones” we know his parents are dead. He also had five brothers all now dead as well. The names of his brothers, Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias and Roger, are typical names for the time the book is set.
Pip lives with his sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, and her husband, Joe, who is a blacksmith. Pip is quite a young boy, probably about ten or eleven years old, and has little education. He is able to read, which is shown when he reads his parents tombstones, but that is about as far as his education stretches. At the beginning of the chapter, when Pip is in the graveyard, he feels alone and lonely. Although these words seem similar, they are not. You could be in a room with forty people and still be lonely but not alone.
Pip’s circumstances change greatly from chapter 1 to chapter 39. While he is still a boy he begins to visit an old lady called Miss Havisham. On these visits he meets two significant people, Estella and Herbert Pocket. After a few years these visits stop and Pip is apprenticed to Joe, until a mystery benefactor gives him a substantial amount of money, which changes his life.
In chapter 39 Pip is “three-and-twenty years of age” (this style of writing number is typical of the time). He is now living in the capital city, London, in an apartment in Garden Court, near the River Thames. The apartment is shared with “Mr. Pocket”, whom he met on a visit to Miss Havisham’s. He still doesn’t know who his mystery benefactor is, but thinks it may have been Miss Havisham.
Between chapter 1 and 39, Pip had been well educated. This is shown by his thirst for reading
I had a taste for reading, and read regularly so many hours a day.
This is not something Pip would have done as a child as he would not have got the chance.
Pip is quite well off. His well-furnished apartment, his collection of books, and his clothes among other things illustrate this.
Despite his comfortable lifestyle, Pip does not feel settled. He also feels alone and lonely, as he did in the first chapter.
I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone.
During the time between chapters 1 and 39, Pip has fallen in love with girl called Estella, who was the main driving force behind him becoming a gentleman, not meaning that she helped him but that she was what Pip wanted and the only way to get her, Pip felt, was to become a gentleman.
In chapter 1 we are introduced to the Convict. He meets Pip in the graveyard, where he is hiding as he has escaped from “the hulks”, which are ships specifically for holding prisoners a little way off the shore.
This Convict is not in very good shape. He is “soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and torn by briars”. As well as being injured, the Convict is very hungry. He forces Pip into bringing him some “wittles”, which is an old word for food. The Convict is alone, although he tells Pip differently in order to scare him into doing as he says.
In the chapters shortly after chapter 1 the Convict is tracked down by soldiers who recapture him and he is returned to the hulks. He then ends up living in Australia due to extradition. While he is there he has many jobs, including sheep farming. Every penny he earns he puts into a sort of trust fund in order to give it to Pip to push him up the rungs of the social ladder.
Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it. I swore that time sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you.
During the time between chapter 1 and 39 the Convict leads a solitary life. He moves around in search of jobs and money, he sleeps rough so his money could be given to Pip and he goes hungry for the same reason.
I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work.
In Australia, the man that the convict works for dies, leaving the Convict some money. This is used for various other ventures in order to earn money. All this money the Convict sends to Mr. Jaggers in England, so it can be given to Pip when he comes of age.
From that there hut and that there hiring out I got money left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me) and got my liberty and went for myself.
Overall, since his encounter with Pip in chapter 1, the convict seems to have made great efforts to become respectable, not for his sake but for Pip’s.
In chapter 1
