Magwitch acts as though he is scared of nothing, but he is worried that he will be caught again, ‘he started, made a short run’, he is scared of being caught, and frightened of anyone seeing him. When Magwitch realizes Pips family is dead, his voice softens, ‘he muttered then, considering’, he feels slightly more sorry for Pip, and he starts changing his threats to ‘might’. He threatens Pip again ‘supposin’ you’re kindly let to live’, Magwitch uses empty threats in order to scare Pip’. As soon as he realizes that pip lives with a blacksmith, he realizes a different was that he could use Pip, ‘looked down at his leg’; he is quick thinking, and quickly thinks of a new use for Pip.
Magwitch keeps on exerting his power on Pip, ‘tilted me back as far as he could hold me’, he tries to disorientate him, and make him feel dazed and confused. ‘Most powerfully down’, Magwitch wants to be in constant control, and uses his size and strength against Pip. Magwitch keeps tilting Pip, ‘he tilted me again’, there is a repetition of this tilting, signifying that he will constantly keep turning Pip’s world around, and even though it may be far into the future, and Pip will think he has seen the last of Magwitch, he will come and turn Pip’s world around once more.
Magwitch keeps showing signs of extreme violence, ‘your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate’, Magwitch gives off an animalistic image. Magwitch invents a tale that he is not alone, and if Pip disobeys him then his companion will come and kill and eat him, ‘a boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep his way to him and tear him open.’ These threats will stay with Pip even when he gets home; Magwitch has manipulated Pip into doing exactly what he wants him to do. Magwitch is also religious, and knows Pip is, ‘Say, Lord strike you dead if you don’t’, there are threats of death again, and the way Magwitch says these threats, means that Pip will have to do everything Magwitch tells him to do.
‘Glancing about him’, despite his brave and fearless image to Pip, he is actually nervous, tense, and worried. Magwitch wishes he could escape the situation he’s in, ‘I wish I was a frog or an eel’, they are wet, slippery animals, and they could escape and enjoy the wet and the cold, instead of shivering and being miserable. ‘Clasping himself, as if to hold himself together’, he is not as strong or as threatening as he appears at first, and the reader feels slightly sorry for him. Magwitch is associated with death and despair, ‘eluding the hands of the dead people’; he only just escapes death, just like his threats to Pip. ‘Numbed and stiff’, Magwitch has been weakened by the hardships he has been through, and the cold and wet that he will have to survive in. Just as Magwitch is limping away he turns round, ‘turned round to look at me’, he needs Pip, and needs his help if he is to survive, and not be caught. Magwitch is in reality quite weak, ‘still hugging himself in both arms’; this is why he needed to invent the terrifying man, as it makes himself more frightening in Pip’s imagination. The last thing that the reader reads about Magwitch, portrays him in a terrifying image, ‘the man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going to hook himself up again’, this makes the reader wonder why he would hook himself back. This shows Magwitch’s weakness.
Pip is the narrator and also the central character in great expectations. The opening paragraph describes in detail his early years and his family. He describes himself as being very young, ‘my infant tongue’; this shows he is quite childish. He has always had to look after himself, ‘so I called myself Pip’; he names himself, and is independent. He is alone, ‘I never saw my father or my mother’, his parents have died, leaving him all alone. When he is writing this, he is clearly an adult, ‘unreasonably’ ‘an odd idea’, he knows that when he was younger he had a very big imagination, and what he thought back then is not the case now, but probably derived from having no paragraphs. He reflects back to his thoughts as a child, ‘childish conclusion’, he is not ashamed of the thoughts he conjured, though presses on the fact that he was just a child. He considers life very tough, ‘universal struggle’, his life as a child, being brought up in quite a poor household has had an effect on how he views the way he has been brought up. He is religious, ‘I religiously entertained’, he has been brought up with his life centred around the church, especially with so many of his family dead.
The scene of Pip in the graveyard opens with him being portrayed as small and innocent, ‘small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry’, he is in isolation in this bleak place, which enhances his fear, he is very much alone. Pip feels intimidated by Magwitch “sir”, this shows Pip is polite, and trying to be civilized towards Magwitch in the hope that Magwitch will return it. Pip is terrified and desperate, “I pleaded in terror”, Pip is begging for his life, desperately clinging to the hope that the convict may show some compassion.
Pip is poor, and the first sign we have of this is when Magwitch empties Pip’s pockets, ‘there was nothing in them but a piece of bread’, Pip is hungry, and this shows he is poor and has nothing. Pip is young, though small for his age; “I was at that time undersized, for my years, and not strong”. Pip is physically weak, as well as being emotionally weak; this derives from living with Mrs. Gargery, who does not love him, and is trying to prevent him from seeing their parents’ graves. Pip holds tight to the gravestone, to not only stop himself from physically falling, but emotionally falling as well, “to keep myself from crying”, Pip wants to seem stronger, as if he cries he will be showing weakness towards the convict.
Pip only knows his parents as inscriptions on gravestones, “also Georgiana”; Dickens has used this, as it evokes feelings of tenderness, pity, sorrow, and sympathy towards Pip. Pip is intimidated by Magwitch once again, “mine looked most helplessly up into his”, he feels helpless, and has no control of the situation, which evokes feelings of insecurity. Pip is undermined and is threatened by being turned upside down, “greater sense of helplessness and danger”. These physical threats make Pip even more terrified, as he is not just physically being turned upside down, but emotionally as well. When Pip is tilted again and again, “I clung to him with both hands”, Pip is terrified of Magwitch, yet reaches out to him emotionally, and physically clings to him for support. “The church jumped over its’ own weather cock”, this is a slight fairytale image, which shows Pip’s childish mind again, though to him seeing the church offers him a slight comfort that God is there with him.
Pip almost breaks down in relief when Magwitch allows him to go, “I faltered”, he is relieved but still shaken. His childish imagination shows, when Magwitch is picking his way through the graves, “as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people”, he imagines very fearful images, that he will always relate to Magwitch and the events that have just taken place. Pip has more childish thoughts, and his imagination runs wild, and he imagines the convict “were the Pirate come to life”. His imagination makes the convict even more frightening to him. “It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so”, Pip is terrified by his own visions of the convict. Pip is very naïve, “I looked all around for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him”. Pip believes Magwitch’s story and his invented character, and is genuinely scared of the young man, which intimidates Pip even more, as this threat will stay with him long after Magwitch is out of sight.
The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations, and throughout the book sets a tone matched to the dramatic actions. The misty marshes are used to symbolize danger and uncertainty. Throughout the chapter Dickens uses Pathetic Fallacy to give human traits to nature. At the beginning of the chapter the day is portrayed as “raw”, which gives the impression of it being a painful and isolated place. Dickens then gives you strong images of the churchyard, “bleak place overgrown with nettles”, this portrays the churchyard as uncared for, and that not many people venture there. Pip’s life outside of the churchyard, “dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard”, is lonely and isolated, the “wilderness” is like Pips life which is lonely, and which does not have many people in it, he is uncared for, just like the churchyard. The sense of bleak isolation is reinforced by the low leaden line” of the river and the description of the sea which follows. The place is dark, bleak, and heavy. The “sea” is there almost as a lair, and a den. “Savage lair”, this is like a brutal animal attacking. Magwitch will come from such a lair, were other things are hiding, and waiting to attack to Pip, not only now, but in the future as well.
Pip is isolated in the graveyard, “a mile or more from the church”, Pip is along way from home and safety, there is nobody around to hear or help him. Even though there is the terror of Magwitch turning Pip over, a short way away is the church, which shows the contrast of holiness and serenity to the evilness of Magwitch.
The marshes are depressing and dark, “cold wet flat”, the marshes are welcoming for no one but animals. The scratching and stinging plants, “brambles that bound the green mounds”, shows that it is pain and misery that hold this place together. “When the rains were heavy, or the tide was in”, the marshes can be dangerous and life threatening. The marshes that were “just a long black horizontal line” are bleak and dark, and full of uncertainty and danger. Dickens uses Pathetic Fallacy to describe the sky, “just a row of long angry red lines”; he gives the sky the image of being angry and dangerous. “Red lines and dense black lines intermixed”, this a mix of red which represents danger, and black which represents death.
Only two things on the marshes are tall and noticeable, “the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright”, everything else is flat and eerie like death. “The beacon by which the sailors steered”, this is a signal to help prevent danger, which shows there could be some safety mixed up in all of the danger. Dickens shows signs of barbarity of the contempory penal system everywhere. A gallows looms over Pip, “a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it”; this is a clear symbol of death and evilness. Everywhere Pip looks there are signs of death. In the whole of the novel as well as in this chapter, whenever Pip goes into the mists of the marshes, something dangerous is likely to happen.
In the essay I have found that the convict is mainly portrayed by Dickens, as a frightening though believable character, who inflicts terror, anguish, pain, and distress. Despite these points though, at the end of the chapter, when Magwitch is ‘limping’ away, the reader feels some compassion for him. Magwitch is a very guarded person, and intrigues the reader, and makes them guess a lot of things about Magwitch’s character. Pip is a small defenseless little boy, who is exposed and vulnerable to the dangers of the world. The reader automatically feels concern, and sympathy for him. As soon as the action starts between Pip and Magwitch, Magwitch is portrayed as the bad person, and Pip as the good, the reader automatically sides with Pip, and you follow his feelings and emotions right through the chapter. The setting helps create the dismal, eerie, and bleak atmosphere. The overgrown churchyard helps to create the perfect setting for what is going on in the chapter, as it represents Pip’s feelings and emotions. Pathetic fallacy is found quite a lot in the chapter; it is used to give human traits to nature, e.g. ‘savage lair’. Pip’s life and world is the microcosm of the chapter, and contains in miniature all the features of the larger structure (macrocosm). Dickens chose the themes of the convict and crime, as these represent dishonesty, law breaking, and wrongdoing. He chose these images of the unacceptable and violent behavior, as the readers of the time would have had very strong vies on these. He also uses symbols such as the gallows, which people also associate with badness and law breaking. The theme of darkness and violence draws in the reader, and they become involved in everything that is going on in the chapter.
Throughout the chapter Dickens uses different techniques such as the setting corresponding with feelings and emotions, and the great aspect of violence, to draw in the reader, and make them become more involved with the characters, and almost feel what they feel. Dickens skillfully leaves the chapter as a cliffhanger, making me (the reader) want to read more.
