How is a tense and mysterious atmosphere created in the opening chapter of Great Expectations?

Dickens, in his novel, uses some devices to get his message across. He uses, mostly, Pathetic fallacy to describe what the situation is like; also to describe the imagery.

The main character in this chapter is Pip. He is the person on whom the chapter is focused on. The writer talks about him, focuses on him, in fact the whole chapter makes us have sympathy for Pip. Therefore, it is him on whom the story is based upon. Pip is not only the protagonist he is also the narrator of this whole novel. ‘My father’s family name being Pirrip and my… name Philip.  This tells us that Pip is the narrator.

The impact on the audience is more than what it would’ve been if the narrator was not Pip. As pip being the narrator it makes it more interesting to read and makes us sympathise for Pip.

It’s important for Pip to be a child and not a full adult. This is because if Pip was an adult the audience may think that Pip can make his life better and that he could make his future brighter. Whereas being a child is another thing. Children need to be looked after, loved at least 4 times a day and cared. If Pip doesn’t get any of these then surely the audience will have a lot of sympathy for this little poor kid.

Pip has lost everything and now he only lives with her sister. He got no parents to love, no brothers to play with, no friends, and graveyard is the place in his world of comfort, because that’s where his family is. ‘Georgiana… Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger… were also dead and buried.’