How does Charles Dickens present Pip as vulnerable in the opening chapters of Great Expectations?

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Umar Ahmed 10e

How does Charles Dickens present Pip as vulnerable in the opening chapters of ‘Great Expectations’?

Charles Dickens wrote ‘Great Expectations’ in 1864. Great Expectations is about a boy called Pip, and how his life changes for the good when he meets Magwitch, a convict in the marshes. Charles Dickens wrote ‘Great Expectations’ and drew upon the similarities to his own life. He was born in 1812 and was the eldest son in a family of 8, his father went to prison, so he had to work in a warehouse, but still went on to be one of the greatest Victorian novelists. That is how the story mirrors his life. Pip too starts off as a poor person then achieves greatness in his life. Charles Dickens uses a wide range of techniques to make Pip, the main character vulnerable, so the reader will feel sympathetic towards him. The way Charles Dickens makes Pip vulnerable is   he meets people who treat him very badly, and he is forced to be alone in desolate places, at the start of the novel.

In the opening chapters of ‘Great Expectations’, the settings is in the marshes near the River Thames. It is dark, frightening, it is cloudy and the wind is very rough. Pip is a young orphan in a graveyard on his own looking at his parents, and brothers’ grave, wondering what they were like. Charles Dickens uses adjectives to create a dangerous setting. The phrase “bleak place with overgrown nettle,” suggests that this place is deserted, empty, frightening and is petrifying for Pip. Another phrase, “the sky was just a row of angry red lines “suggests that the Charles Dickens is personifying that the sky is a row of long angry red lines, and that the sky is cloudy and very frightening. This makes the reader imagine that the environment around pip is against him and the weather is aggressive towards him. This is intensified by Charles Dickens who uses metaphors to create a desolate, bleak picture of the landscape. He says “the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing has the sea.” The comparison helps the reader to imagine that the wind is very rough and the wind is attacking Pip it looks like everything is against him; making him more vulnerable, this makes the reader feel sorry for Pip because Charles Dickens makes Pip as a little boy who is gullible, and his mind thinks that everything is against him, because he has such a vivid imagination.  

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Charles Dickens makes Pip vulnerable in the graveyard, but his vulnerability increases when he meets a convict unexpectedly in the graveyard. Charles Dickens uses compound sentences to describe the convict. This builds up tension adding to his description, for example the convict is described as, ‘a fearful man, in all coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. This description makes the convict look like a ghost to Pip. He uses speech and dialogue to describe the convict, such as ‘hold your noise… or I’ll cut your throat!” This reveals that the convict ...

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