Great Expectations

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How Charles Dickens Creates Sympathy for Pip in the Novel Great Expectations

Charles Dickens was born 7th February 1812, in the Georgian era, and died 9th June 1870 in the Victorian era. The Novel Great Expectations was one of his best Novels he started writing Great Expectations on December 1st 1860 and finished it in August 1861.The Novel Great Expectations was heavily influenced by how children were treated at that time in Society, such as children being put to work in the workhouse’s, which they had to do hard labour and work twice as hard to earn a small amount of money. All of the children that worked in the workhouses were lower class and they had to serve the upper class. They had to face the harsh reality at that time in Society and generally had to work hard as much as 18 hours a day. Though Dickens was 20 years old he began writing many Novels in series for a monthly magazine. The Novel Great Expectations made people “Escape” the ugliness and harshness of peoples everyday average life, and leave them with serious thoughts on how people were treated in life and put into classes to identify themselves, and to know what is valuable and unjust in Society. How the upper class classed themselves superior to the lower class, as Dickens has shown in Great Expectations, and many of his other novels as Charles Dickens is what is known as a Social Historian who wrote about conditions at the time in a palatable way, which the upper classes would find acceptable, thus enabling them to see the rankings of life in the form of a novel.

The main characters in the Novel Great Expectations are Pip, Miss Havisham, Estella and Magwitch.The sub-characters Mr Pumblechook, Joe Gragery and his wife Mrs Gragery.The story concentrates on Pip who is the protagonist of Great Expectations he lives in the marshlands with his sister Mrs Gragery along with her husband Joe the Blacksmith. Pip had been asked by Miss Havisham can he go to Satis House to go and play with Estella and to entertain Miss Havisham.Mr Pumplechook is the greedy shopkeeper who takes Pip to Satis Manor.

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Pip is the Protagonist in the Novel Great Expectations he is a very timid and shy boy who is seven years of age. He is a child that suffers from lack of identity and has nobody to show him love as he says “I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip” this shows us the clear connection that he had lack of identity because he had to make up a nickname for himself which is usually what parents do or loving family members. He also mentions “It gave me the odd idea that he was a square ...

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