Great Expectations - Why is Magwitch an Important Character in the novel?
Great Expectations Why is Magwitch an Important Character in the novel? The character Magwitch is the first character the narrator Pip meets in the novel. The first meeting is not altogether very friendly, vivid ideas about the character are created by Dickens's description. Magwitch plays the part of a convict imprisoned most likely because of debt. The convict persona is later altered and modified by Dickens in the novel as he presents the ideas that Magwitch is affectionate, caring and does not deserve his earlier hardships. The idea of the character being a convict may cause readers who have strong opinions already developed to be bias against him. Dickens still expresses his views on injustice and the drawbacks of the social system effectively. In the first chapter of 'Great Expectations', Pip (the first person narrator) has a confrontation with the convict Magwitch in a graveyard on the marshes. The chapter is set on a marshy area by a river in a churchyard: "ours was the marsh country, down by the river"; "was the churchyard" show this. The narrative describes the churchyard being a "bleak place overgrown with nettles" and explains, "The distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea". The churchyard scene gives a, cold and dark impression, somewhere most readers would probably not like to be on a cold day or night. The actual confrontation with
Examine how dickens' description of character and setting contribute to the creation of the mood in three different points in the novel Great Expectations
Great expectations. In this piece of coursework I am going to examine how dickens' description of character and setting contribute to the creation of the mood in three different points in the novel. I am going to explain three important chapters that shape the play, Firstly I will be looking at the opening graveyard scene where Pip meets Magwitch, this is very important as it shapes his future. The second chapter I will be looking at is Chapter Eight at Miss Havishams house, where Pip meets Estella and begins to fall in love with her. And finally Chapter Twenty-Five at Wemmicks house where Pip learns how to become a Gentleman. Firstly I am going to look at the graveyard scene. This chapter is where we first see evidence of Dickens' gothic style. The graveyard was a "bleak place overgrown with nettles" referring to the church and the graveyard. This gothic style fits in very well with this chapter as Dickens has set the scene in a graveyard next to a church. This, together with the overgrown nettles and neglected grass makes the graveyard quite an eerie place to be. The area beyond the graveyard is described as "dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard". This description suggests that Pip could see for miles along the marshland and could also see if there was anybody else around. The fact that Pip is supposedly alone in the graveyard also adds an element of eeriness to the
Explore the initial presentation of Dickens Magwitch and Miss Havisham in Great Expectations
Explore the initial presentation of Dickens' Magwitch and Miss Havisham in Great Expectations Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel written by Charles Dickens, the most popular English novelist of the Victorian Era. It was published as a serial edition in his magazine named 'All the Year Round' on a weekly basis to increase its sales and to make it more available to the public. Like most of his novels there exists a concern for social reform, through which Dickens conveys and expresses his own opinions of the Victorian social system. Through his presentation of characters, Dickens demonstrates that Victorian society revolved around social class and how individuals judged others based on their class, status and appearance, doing so by satirising Victorian society. The protagonist of the novel is named Pip, and like the young Dickens, dreams of becoming a gentleman. Dickens' father was imprisoned for bad debt which may have been the stimulation of the escaped convict Magwitch. Before his father's imprisonment, Dickens had the good-fortune of being sent to a boarding school at the age of nine, where Dickens got a taste of the upper-class, and most probably where his dreams of becoming a gentleman developed. Dickens expresses many of his views through characters in the novel. The presentation of Magwitch, for example is used to show how highly the society of the time
'In our mutual friend' Charles Dickens explores attitudes to money in victorian society examine the characters of Lizzie Hexam, Bella Wilfer and mrs Boffin and show what you have learnt about money and social class in the 1960's.
'In our mutual friend' Charles Dickens explores attitudes to money in victorian society examine the characters of Lizzie Hexam, Bella Wilfer and mrs Boffin and show what youhave learnt about money and social class in the 1960's. The title of the Charles Dickens novel is 'Our mutual friend'.The author Charles Dickens was born in the early 1850's and he wrote 'our mutual friend' in 1864 and his family were very poor. In 'our mutual friend' there is a vast range of characters including very poor people such as Gaffer and really rich people with newly acquired money such as the Veneerings. There are also lots of different aged characters ranging from small children to old men and women. There is also some that are in the middle such as mrs Boffin and Bella Wilfer. These people are not rich or poor they are lower middle class In Victorian society there were very big differences in classes because the rich were very rich and they had big houses and servants. Also the poor were very poor because they would be begging and living anywhere and didn't have any money even for food. The poor certainly didn't have any money for luxury's. Money is very important to the novel because it seperates all of the different classes and characters from each other. The money in the novel is important because it helps you understand what it was like in the victorian times and what people did and
Explore Pip’s relationship with Joe and Magwitch and look at how his attitude towards these two characters changes during novel
Explore Pip's relationship with Joe and Magwitch and look at how his attitude towards these two characters changes during novel In the novel Great Expectations one of the major influences on the main character is Joe Gargery. Pip lives with his sister because both of his parents are dead. Joe is Pip's sister's husband and owns the house in which the three of them live. He is quite a simple man; he has received very little education and is a blacksmith by trade. Before he goes to London Pip is Joe's apprentice. At the beginning of the book Pip and Joe are quite equal, Pip describes Joe and himself as being, "fellow sufferers". This is a reference to Pip's sister Mrs Joe's strict house keeping. She takes charge over both of them, for instance when Mrs Joe thought that Pip had bolted his food instead of just giving him a medicine for it, both Pip and Joe received a dose of tar water. As Pip recalls, "a pint of the mixture was poured down my throat. Joe got off with half a pint." It appears as though she treats them both like children. It actual fact they do behave slightly like it. Their equality sparks a relationship that could be likened to Joe being Pip's older brother. This can be noticed in the way in which Joe looks out for Pip. For example Pip arrives home to find that Mrs Joe has been out looking for him, Joe advises him to hide and protect himself because
Great Expectations Vs The Genius.
English Coursework Great Expectations Vs The Genius In the course of this essay I shall be analysing the use of a first person narrator in two fictional stories. The first an extract from 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens and the second the short story by Frank O'Connor entitled 'The Genius'. Narrative viewpoint is the voice telling the story. It describes the setting, people, people's appearances and their personalities. There are many types of narrator for example: 1st person, 3rd person, omniscient narrator (fly on the wall). An example of a first person narrator is in 'Your Shoes' by Michèle Roberts. A 1st person viewpoint means that the voice guiding proceedings is actually a character within the story. The narrator refers to himself as 'I'. The stories I am analysing are set in the 1st person, and both characters are children. During both of the stories there are flashbacks, this would suggest that the narrators were adults recalling their youth. This is particularly apparent in 'The Genius'. In both 'Great Expectations' and 'The Genius' the 1st person narrator tries to gain our sympathy, there is an example of this when both characters describe themselves. The first impressions we get of Phillip Pirrip (Great Expectations) almost immediately gains our sympathy: "My infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip" This
Pip goes up to London in order to become a gentleman.
Pip goes up to London in order to become a gentleman. Two different types of gentleman are presented to the reader throughout Great Expectations. The first is Pip's earlier definition, where he finds a gentleman to be someone with wealth, "breeding", education, and social status. This materialistic definition of a gentleman is exactly like the description of Bentley Drummle, who, however is obviously not a gentleman in behaviour or manners - "...he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved and suspicious. He came of rich people ... who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead." One of the aspects of being "gentlemanly" to Pip was education. When he originally arrived in London, he was completely ignorant of common etiquette and practise in company, and the way of doing things that was assumed right - "He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!" says Estella - Pip immediately begins to regret his background, and assumes that as Estella says the knaves are not Jacks, this is the truth, whereas in reality this is just a socially discriminate term. Herbert helps to teach Pip the right way to do things - he remains very polite, and the "pale young gentleman" goes out of his way not to embarrass Pip whilst he corrects his social misdemeanours - ""...in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth - for fear
In what ways does Dickens create effective images of people and/or places? Explore in particular a short section, which includes particularly vivid descriptions.
Great Expectations In what ways does Dickens create effective images of people and/or places? Explore in particular a short section, which includes particularly vivid descriptions. The opening chapter plunges the reader straight into a crisis of identity as Philip Pirrip, the retrospective first person narrator seeks to find out who he is and his place in an extremely inhospitable world and tells the reader how he came to call himself Pip. The beginning of Great Expectations demonstrates something of the extraordinary range and power of Dickens' language. Pip's comical misreading of his parents' tombstone introduces the reader to some important themes in the novel: namely the idea of self authorship, the whole debate about identity in the novel, the search for lost parentage and the misunderstanding of evidence generally. As readers we can make different inferences from the evidence, but we do not know the truth until he does. This lends dramatic immediacy to the action. In Charles Dickens's hands first person narration is an extremely flexible medium for story telling. Pip is a brilliant teller of his own tale. The older, sophisticated narrator explores the imaginative, but essentially innocent mind of his younger self, with a wit and vocabulary that is anything but childlike. He is comical, dramatic, regretful and ironic by turn. Part of the tension in the narration
Examine How Charles Dickens Portrays the Differences in Social Class of Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham.
Examine How Charles Dickens Portrays the Differences in Social Class of Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham During the 19th century, Britain was entering a new era. The reign of Queen Victoria had brought about many exciting propositions, with industry leading the way at the forefront. Due to the Industrial Revolution and the fact that Britain was being ruled by a woman, the action of 'Great Expectations' was occurring against the backdrop of major social and cultural changes. Although Britain, as a whole, was becoming exceedingly richer, the Industrial Revolution that was taking place also spawned great poverty. The working conditions in the factories were deplorable. Child labour was prevalent and the slums of large cities, such as London, bred transgression, crime and disease. Only men of property had the right to vote, so the proletariats were excluded from the political system, impeding the aristocrats to take any action on the matters of lower classed citizens. Women had few rights and little choice but to marry and upon doing so everything they owned, inherited and earned automatically belonged to their husband. It was in this underside of society and the injustices of life in Victorian Britain that Charles Dickens' found the material for his novels. These injustices are exactly what link Mrs. Joe Gargery, a downtrodden and poor blacksmith's wife, to Miss Havisham, an
Great Expectations analysis of chapter 1 and 5
In the novel "Great Expectations", Charles Dickens explores several themes and uses dramatic language to create suspense, analyse chapter 1 and 39 explore the techniques he uses to build tension "Great Expectations" was published by Charles Dickens on December 1st 1860 in "All the year round", a weekly that published fiction in serial format. The novel "Great Expectations" ran for 36 weeks and concluded on August 3rd 1861. The older Pip is the narrator of the story, which begins when he is aged seven. He is an orphan living with his sister and her husband who is the local blacksmith. Their home is set in the marshes of Kent. One evening while visiting his parents' graves, an escaped convict, who orders him at the peril of his life to obtain food and a file for his leg irons, grabs Pip. Pip obeys and the convict is soon captured, but he protects Pip by claiming to have stolen the items himself. Miss Havisham, who lives in a grand house outside Pip's village, is a wealthy woman, who was abandoned on her wedding day and her home has not changed since that date. The dining room table is still prepared for the wedding feast. Pip is asked to visit the house and play with Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Estella. She treats him coldly and harshly, and Pip dreams of becoming worthy enough of her, and he is determined to obtain some sort of education. Some years later Pip is