Magwitch is introduced in chapter one when he meets Pip in an old churchyard (in which most of Pip's family is buried, including his mother and father). From Pip’s description of him, the reader gains a first impression of Magwitch as being a fearsome and formidable character. His murderous threats terrify Pip and the dark, scary setting makes the convict seem callous and cruel.
The marshland is describe as having “..scattered cattle feeding on it..”. The scattered cattle make the marshes seem wild, free and natural; this is much like Magwitch. He has no purpose in his life and is quite unkempt and disordered – until, that is, he meets Pip.
"..the sky was a row of long angry red lines.."; this can be taken to mean more than one thing. The long angry red lines create an image of a sky filled with red, vivid colours (angry being the metaphor that gives this impression, since lines cannot be angry. Anger also represents hatred, passion and energy.) which could either be the sun setting or the sun rising. Also, the angry lines could be a reference to Magwitch; the anger giving a sense of hatred in his personality (reinforced by him threatening Pip, "..your heart and your liver shall be tore out..", but also a reference to Magwitches' appearance -- "..fearful man, all in coarse grey..lamed by stones..cut by flints..glared and growled.." gives an impression of him being a grumpy, hardened and ageing man.
The churchyard setting is momentous and Dickens tries to portray that the convict is wanted for death, as the character was described as “..eluding the hand of the dead people..”; this implies that the dead are seeking revenge on him, by pulling him into a grave (towards the end of the novel, Magwitch is hanged for his crimes) or that Magwitch is trying to escape from his past and change his ways; he is avoiding the hands of the people that he may have affected, or killed, during his streak of crime.
Miss Havisham is the wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pip's village. She is insane and often seems flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress although she never leaves her house; keeping herself enclosed in a time-stopped surrounding when, as a young woman, Miss Havisham was left standing at the altar by her fiancé mere minutes before her wedding, and now she has a broken heart and seeks to break any man's heart with which she meets. She adopts and raises the beautiful Estella, only for her to become a tool of Miss Havisham's revenge, teaching her to seduce and then crush a man.
When Pip first enters Miss Havisham's room, it is described as having “..no glipse of daylight was to be seen..” -- this is because the windows and curtains are closed, but we can take this to mean that Miss Havisham is shutting out not only the light, but also people and the outside world, possibly because she does not want to become too emotionally attached and thus preventing another heart-break.
Miss Havisham's wedding cake is described as "..so indistinguishable.."; this could both mean that the cake has just rotted away over many years, and you could not tell by sight that it was a cake, but also how warped and distorted Miss Havisham's personality now is – she is now a bitter and somewhat wicked old lady, whereas she was neither of these things before her fiancé left her, heart-broken.
When Dickens describes Miss Havisham, his choices of words are very dark and gloomy. For instance she has “withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.” It seems as if Miss Havisham has withered like her surrounding. Everything that had been bright, new and beautiful was now old, withered and decaying. The reader, therefore, feels pity and even compassion for Miss Havisham, but her character is much more complex and as Great Expectations unfolds, it turns out that she is a very resentful woman.
The relationship is symbolized by mice, which eat the wedding cake and which she claims have ‘bitten at her heart’. She even imagines herself laid out on the table for their consumption after her death.
‘No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it’, Dickens uses this to show that Miss Havisham shuts her life on everything and everyone. This defiantly suits the setting of the old and ‘withered’ house; it is suited to Miss Havisham due to her bleakness. Later on in the novel, Pip opens the curtains in Miss Havishams house and lets in the light. By having light in Pips, life, it will help him to grow to become the gentlemen of a higher social class.
