“Each blade tattooed with tiger skins of sunlight. It was knife edged, dark, and a wicked green, thick as a forest and alive with grasshoppers that chirped and chattered and leapt through the air like monkeys.”
These descriptive metaphors and similes are quite dark images such as some of Pips were in great expectations. Therefore both authors are showing childhood as quite a scary daunting time and just normal simple things are twisted by their immature imagination into things, which are scary.
Laurie Lee has written about childhood in Cider with Rosie as he saw it because it is an autobiographical novel that describes his childhood during the war. Laurie Lee portrays his childhood and growing up with the growing up of the nation. Laurie Lee although he does talk about many unpleasant things he glosses them over with the countryside
Charles Dickens portrays childhood as a scary and hard time for his own reasons. Dickens had quite a bad childhood with his dad being in prison and himself living in the Victorian times when children were treated poorly. He also worked extremely hard in the blacking factory. He also disliked his mother as he was told to go work in the blacking factory again after he left it by his mum. Miss Haversham and Mrs Joe reflect this in great expectations. Dickens wanted other people to understand the hardship that he had been through and was quite self-obsessed with his harsh childhood. He decided to tell people about this through the novels that he wrote and in the example In Great Expectations, Pip goes through many of the hardships that Dickens went through.
Pip also has very deep feelings on people and things. Whereas Laurie Lee is more detached from his own thoughts he doesn’t have guilt he is more interested in the world around him.
Another difference in the way that the authors portray childhood is that Laurie Lee makes his childhood a beautiful childhood he paints a picture of the countryside and the things around him as shown on page }{}}{. Whereas Pip’s is more dark and gloomy he shows the harder side of life as on page {}{}{}{}. Lee does this in the style of his writing, which is very poetic and flowing. This is due to the fact that before Laurie Lee was a writer, he was a poet. This means that the way he portrays childhood is poetic and picturesque way. Although Charles Dickens does use large descriptive pieces he uses it negatively and shows the darker side of life.
In cider with Rosie it is set in the Countryside in an unspoilt quiet village, which glosses over the unpleasant parts. However, In great expectations Dickens, sets the story in dark scenes such as the beginning in the graveyard, the scenes in the marshes and in the unclean dark streets of London, which makes the story more depressing.
Pip was set in a time where you are made to feel guilty for the things that you have done and that you are always. Pip is almost obsessed with his guilty thoughts and fear of imprisonment. The theme of guilt and imprisonment often occurs in Great Expectations. Such as on page[[][][][]
Laurie Lee however does not see childhood as a time of guilt but more of a carefree time where you don’t have to feel guilty. As this line on page shows:
“And exhaled our last guiltless days.”
However Laurie is not always guiltless, like pip he has a moment in the book where he felt guilty about what he had done. This is shown on page. 47 in the line:
“That the summons to the big room, the policeman’s hand on shoulder, comes almost always as a complete surprise, and for the crime that one has forgotten.”
Laurie lee and pip both see their elders in different ways. Pip sees their facial features and the way their features are shape as shown in this text on page}{}}{}}}}}}}}}{}{}.
Laurie Lee relates possessions and smell with elders. As show on page][][][]][][]]]][.
Pip sees everything much darker and sees the worst side of life there is no nice side of life for him he sees most things in a very dark nature. Laurie Lee sees thinks in a much happier view he thinks there is no bad side to life at a young age he is happy. This is probably because of the times that they grew up in and their surrounding.
