In chapter 39, Pip is also alone as Herbert is said to have gone to on a business trip. Repetition of the word ‘alone’ is used along with negative adjectives such as ‘disappointed’ to emphasise how lonely Pip feels. Weather is used to create a tense atmosphere as Pip repeats ‘stormy and wet’ and ‘mud’ several times and since stormy nights are normally associated with strange events plus the violence in the description such as ‘trees had been torn up’ suggest this chapter is going to be a major turning point in this novel and surely enough, the mysterious benefactor is revealed later on in this chapter.
Pip is a middle aged man looking back at his life and the effect of this narrative viewpoint is that is it left up to the reader to decide their feelings towards Pip’s character hence the fact the reader starts to despise him as the story progresses until the end of chapter 39 which is also the end of the second stage of Pip’s great expectation.
In chapter 1, the story is described the way a seven year old would describe the situation with the convict. Pip describes the man at the graveyard repeating the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ after each description. This technique, not only creates a list of negatives making Pip fearful, but also makes Pip sound childish and therefore vulnerable to the reader as he doesn’t seem to know that this man is a criminal although the reader knows this from what Pip is describing. Pip’s vulnerability is further emphasised when Pip believes the story of the young man told by the convict to threaten him.
Similes such as ‘heart beating like a heavy hammer’ are used in chapter 39 to convoy Pip’s fear and how the news had surprised him since he had always thought Miss Havisham was his benefactor. Pip says ‘I seemed to be suffocating’ after finding out the truth. This is where Pip’s character begins to be despised by the reader more than any other section in the book. After finding out the truth he does not thank the man who is like a second father to him, but shouts and repeats Estella’s name so show that all he wanted to become a gentleman for was Estella.
In both chapters, the reader is not told who this man Pip is describing is. Pip refers to him by saying ‘the man’. This emphasises the sense of mystery which further creates tension as the reader does not know what this mysterious man is capable of doing or what his business is.
In chapter 39, Dickens uses pathetic fallacy, ‘so furious had been the gusts’, to show Pip’s emotions and how he feels. This is particularly helpful in creating the desired sense of tension as it too emphasises the violence and abnormality of the night leading up to a lot of tension before the reader is told what happens on that night.
Although Pip is fearful of the man in both chapters, but in chapter 39 he mostly resents the fact that a non-gentleman shows gratified recognition towards him whereas in chapter 1, Pip is very respectful towards the man by referring to him as ‘sir’ every time.
This shows us how much Pip has changed to become a gentleman, a sort of snobbish attitude to those he sees lower down in the Victorian class system to him. Dickens tries to convey the reader that being a gentleman can mean putting yourself above others and judging lower class people too quickly. Irony is used in chapter 39, before Pip is told who his benefactor really is, when Pip offers Magwitch £2 because he was given that sum of money by Magwitch when he was a young boy. This is linked to Joe’s visit because Pip tell the reader that he would have kept Joe away by paying money if he could thus this is the reason why the reader feels a lot less sympathetic towards Pip in chapter 39.
In the Victorian times, criminals were the lowest members of the working class and often referred to as the ‘criminal classes’. People that were higher than those in the criminal class thought of them as having a behavioural abnormality, either inherited or due to being badly brought up.
Crime was handled very unfairly by the criminal justice system, for example, a hungry boy who broke into a bakery, got the same punishment as those who broke into a house and had the intention to steal a lot more than a loaf of bread.
Dickens opposed the death penalty and argued that taking someone’s life does nothing to prevent crime. He shows his disapproval of the justice system in the book by showing how the weak form of Magwitch, clearly not a criminal anymore as he had worked as a sheep farmer in Australia for most of his life, an honest day’s worker’, was given capital punishment along with thirty-two others all in the same court.
Overall, Dickens is very successful in creating tension throughout chapter 1 and 39 by using various writing techniques and also letting the reader decide how to feel for Pip for themselves as narrative viewpoint shows the reader how he felt at the time.
The main messages of this novel are that being a gentleman does not necessarily mean being born into a wealthy family. This is shown through Joe, Pips father figure. Although he is illiterate and poor, he is honest, loyal and forgiving which are the qualities of a true gentleman. The other main message of this novel it the way the criminal justice system worked in the Victorian times and Dickens’ own opposition towards it.
The End.
