David Drayton 14.10.07
How does Dickens capture the reader’s interest in the first eight chapters of “Great Expectations”?
Charles Dickens had a great talent for engaging the reader in his fascinating novels. ‘Great Expectations’ was one of the last that Dickens wrote and it is one of the most famous in English literature ever. Dickens was the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens and was the second of seven children. John Dickens was a clerk at the navy pay office but he struggled to provide for his growing family. John Dickens was in severe debt and the family had to sell of personal items but this was not enough for his creditors and he was arrested and sent to Marshalsea Prison. For Charles being such a young child it would be very distressing. As his father was in prison this meant that Charles at the age of twelve found work at Warren’s Blacking factory where he was paid six shillings a week for wrapping shoe black bottles. Charles had to do this to help provide for his family. This had a great influence on the novel as there are autobiographical elements in the book. At twelve years old this is a lot to go through and he didn’t have a very good childhood just the same as Pip in the novel. ‘Great Expectations’ has a lot of autobiographical elements in it no just about Pip but other elements as well. For example Dickens lived Chatham in Kent and in Great Expectations this is where Pip is living and both Dickens and Pip had very unhappy childhoods with tragic family histories. The same as Pip, Dickens also moved to London and found work there and people said that Dickens himself after living in London for a few years was a very snobbish man just the same as Pip is towards the end of the book until he realises that Joe was already a gentle Christian man.
Dickens started of his literary career as a journalist like many others in his time. Dickens engaged the reader in all his novels with epic stories and his vivid characters which are so memorable. Dickens talent is shown within his novels as he includes many autobiographical aspects of his personal life which makes this novel a brilliant read. The opening of the novel is very dramatic and we find out the Pip’s tragic history.
‘Great Expectations’ is written in first person but there is also dual narration in the course of the book. At the start of the novel Pip introduces himself as an adult Pip and then he tells the reader a biographical account of his family’s history as the younger Pip. Observing the world through Pip as a child brings the reader to sympathise him which engages the reader with what is happening. Throughout the novel we hear the voice of the older Pip coming through, for example when he says “Since that time, which is far enough away now.” This is the older voice of Pip telling the reader about his past. There is another example of the older voice of Pip coming through after Magwitch has threatened Pip. “What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then.” This is when Pip is at home and he is still worrying about Magwitch’s friend but this is obviously not the younger Pip as he speaks more maturely. As there is dual narration we get to hear it from two different perceptions of what is happening. The effect on the reader of there being dual narration is that the older voice keeps on coming through and telling us about the past and how he thinks of it now being older. To add to this the adult voice is honest and very reliable as since he is an adult you can trust him in what he is saying. While on the other hand when Pip Is speaking because he is so young you can never tell if it is reliable. Dickens makes it so he describes what happens in Pip’s life then he skips it and goes on to the adult Pip. The effect of this engages the reader’s curiosity to see what happened in his life since then. Next there is the other side of the story because there is young Pip who is telling us how it felt for him at his age. In the novel Dickens has put in so you hear the side of the story from younger Pip first and then the older Pip talking about how it was. Even though they are the same people it doesn’t mean that the reader will get the same perspective. Because Pip is of such a young age Dickens can bring humour into what he is saying. “The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly clack hair.” This is very sad but it has a bit of humour in it because Pip is trying to describe his father from how the letters look on his grave.
At a couple of different places in Pip makes comments that could be recognized to Dickens himself. Dicken’s father was sent to prison and Dickens was at a young age when this happened so he put questions for Pip to ask. For example “I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?” Here in the novel Pip asking this question to his sister and Joe but Pip is not the only person who would want to know, Dickens himself would have wanted to know properly where his father went. This is an example of autobiographical element that Dickens has put into the novel, and from reading this book you are not only learning about Pip’s life but you are very much learning about what happened to Dickens in his childhood.
As Pip introduces himself the reader will immediately feel sympathetic towards him. The opening of the first chapter is set in the churchyard, with Pip standing in front of the gravestones of his father, mother and his five brothers. We learn that Pip is an orphan and that since that his “first fancies regarding what they (Pip’s parents) were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.” Sympathy is created for the reader because we know Pip is an orphan but that he has never actually seen his parents. Dickens emphasizes this feeling of loss by describing “five little stone lozenges” which are the graves of his five little brothers. The only way that Pip can try to see what his parents looked like is from observing the letters on there gravestone and trying to imagine what they looked like. “The shape of the letters on my father’s, grave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly clack hair.” This is very childish because Pip doesn’t know any other way that he can find out what his parents looked like so instead he try’s to imagine them like the writing on their graves and it is a very childish thing to do. Pip’s childhood is very bleak and the first time the reader meets Pip you couldn’t think that his life could be any worse but it does get worse in the course of the novel. Dickens deliberately makes the reader feel sympathetic for Pip because as he does this it maintains the reader’s interest and that in a book is probably the most important object. Dickens has put in things which make the reader feel concerned for Pip and the reader will want to know what the future holds for Pip and how he will get on in life. When the convict sneaks up on Pip, it surprises Pip and since you already feel sorry for him it gets worse for young Pip because he is now terrified. The convict threatens Pip a lot and here Dickens causes the reader to fear for the safety of Pip and this feeling is reinforced when Pip gets threatened directly. So it goes further than just feeling sympathetic for Pip but now Dickens has introduced a question of safety for Pip.
