Dickens wants the reader to feel sympathetic towards Pip. How is this achieved? The aim of this coursework is to identify all techniques used by Dickens to create sympathy towards Pip.

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Priscilla Naiga

GCSE English Coursework

December 2005

Great Expectations

By

Charles dickens

Task: In chapter 8, 14 and 49, Pip a boy from a humble background meets with a rich and eccentric lady Miss Havisham. An atmosphere is built that reveals aspect of Pip’s changing character. Dickens wants the reader to feel sympathetic towards Pip. How is this achieved?

The aim of this coursework is to identify all techniques used by Dickens to create sympathy towards Pip.

Pip is an orphan boy living with his overbearing sister and her kind husband Joe Gargery. As an infant Pip was unable to say his name Philip Pirrip, Philip being his Christian name and Pirrip being his father’s family name so he shortened his name and called himself Pip and came to be known as so. Pip is from a family in the lower social class but everything is turned around when he receives a great expectation later in his life.

Pip and Miss Havisham first encountered in chapter eight at her manor, Satis House when a visit is arranged for Pip to come and play with Estella. The visit was arranged, in chapter seven, by a merchant obsessed with money, Uncle Pumblechook, Pip’s pretentious uncle. Miss Havisham is in the upper class and Pip is in the lower class so for him to be at Miss Havisham’s is an honor. Their differing social background is important as it introduces Pip to the upper class which eventually leads to Pip’s one and only desire to become a gentleman so that he may be worthy of having Estella.

The Satis house has a grey eerie atmosphere and a setting of imprisonment which is likely to seem as though to Pip. When he first encounters the house he must feel as though his freedom has been taken away from him when he the gates are shut and locked with keys. A feeling of awkwardness must have developed in Pip when he sees that all the clocks are stopped at 20minutes past nine and Miss Havisham is in a wedding dress seated by a decaying feast on a grand table. Pip is more than likely to think that he is a mad house. He would seem scared, as well as confused in Miss Havisham’s manor.

Miss Havisham is a filthy rich and eccentric lady whose life is defined by a single tragic event. Compeyson, her ex fiancée, jilting her. Due to this Miss Havisham has dedicated her life to total darkness and has shut the outside world out of her life. With all her clocks stopped throughout her whole house she has no sense of time. She wears a wedding dress with one shoe on her foot all the time and has

 a decaying feast on a grand table in her dining room. Since her heartbreak Miss Havisham has neither heart nor feelings and seeks revenge which is why she adopted Estella and has brought her up to have no heart and play with those of boys. Estella is a beautiful girl who is of the same age as Pip, as well as being his one desirable love throughout the whole story. Despite Estella continuously calling Pip ‘boy’, criticizing him and reminding him of his lower class he still falls in love with her and allows her to be the one to drive him to his desires of being a gentleman.

Pip is introduced in the story in three different stages of his life; as a child, when we are introduced to his background and lifestyle. As an adolescent, when he is first introduced to Estella when he goes to Miss Havisham’s manor, Satis House, to play. And as an adult, when he receives a great expectation from his secret benefactor, Magwitch, then later becomes a gentleman.

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We, the reader, first sympathise with Pip, the main character, in chapter 1 when we first acknowledge that he could not even pronounce his own name ‘My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name being Philip, my infant tongue could make both of my names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.’ Knowing this tells us that he is unable to read his own name, which means he was most probably not educated because he could not afford it. This draws sympathy towards him as when think deeply about this. We are usually able to read our ...

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