Dickens uses a technique that is used in most ‘scary’ settings, Pip hears the footsteps of the stranger outside his room, he begins to be paranoid, it’s dark, bad weather, his sister is dead and he is all alone, then he hears a footstep which makes him jump he fears (as an imagination) that it is his ‘dead sister’. Dickens creates more suspense as Pip has remembered that the stair lights are out, so he will not be able to see who is downstairs, At the point where the stranger says Pip’s name, everything freezes, for the reader and Pip, we begin to think who is this man? Who comes out of nowhere and knows Pip? This creates more tension within the chapter on how the weather, Pip’s feelings and his emotions are in contrasts with his fear, and now, a stranger has come to see Pip.
Dickens makes Pip is reluctant to invite the man into his home because of the question the stranger asks ‘There’s no one nigh…is there?’ which is created more drama and suspense in this chapter because it makes the reader wonder why would he want to know who is up there instead of Pip? The greatest surprise is when we finally find out who this stranger is…he is Magwitch, the convict who Pip helped long ago. Magwitch makes a game of who Pip’s benefactor is, ‘how are you living?’’ I hope you have this well?’ these are only a few questions he keeps shooting at him. Then it is finally revealed. ; Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you!’ This has again froze the reader; all those thoughts of Miss Havisham being Pip’s benefactor, Pip tries to find out if anyone else beside Mr. Jaggers was involved, but ‘why should there be?’ ‘O ESTELLA, ESTALLA’ Dickens’s has played with Pip’s feelings, making him think that there is something to do with this, that Estella has now nothing to do with this.
Dickens has decided to make Pip not behave as a 19th century gentleman should; he keeps interrupting Magwitch while he talks. But what Pip doesn’t realise is-through all his fear and doubt-that Magwitch came back from Australia to make all this happen, Magwitch risked his own life to come back, (It was common for convicts to be sent to Australia at that time and that they would be hanged of they were to ever return). Pip also realises that Magwitch’s life is in his own hands ‘where will you put me?’–‘to sleep? Pip is surprised that he asks this, he doesn’t know what to do he decides to put him in a room to sleep for the night.
Along with Pip, the reader may feel that Magwitch will harm Pip during the night, so Dickens has built up to this by making the reader think that, ‘Magwitch comes unsurprisingly to Pip’s door, and he expects to sleep here?’ this question may be in the mind of the reader. Dickens has conveyed that Pip has no faith in ‘Miss Havisham’, that she has ‘no intentions for’ him that they are ‘not designed for’ him. His desires are nothing but a mere childhood dream. The ‘black veil’ on Pip’s face must now open up and we will now see what lies ahead of him.
Dickens has used repletion on the images and sounds in this chapter, and has also played with Pip’s feelings, which also plays with the readers feelings, we now what Pip knows, there was no dramatic irony, this was a surprise for Pip and the reader, which to me is good way of writing a story, all we knew is what Pip knew. So in conclusion I believe that Dickens has created the most powerful chapter in Great Expectations and he has made Pip realise a valuable lesson: that noting is what it seems, that everything that once was, is lost, and everything that should have been remembered, was forgotten and that a dream and turn into a nightmare- into a linear sequence of scares, but still have an effect on your subconscience.