Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations Coursework

How does Dickens engage the reader in ‘Great Expectations’?

‘Great Expectations’ was written by Charles Dickens in the Victorian

times where gothic elements were greatly enjoyed by the readers at

that time. In the Victorian age, crimes would be taken extremely

seriously and any thief caught would be taken to the Hulks (prison

ships). The title ‘Great Expectations’ gives us the idea that the

novel is about the high hopes about Pip’s life or future. ‘Great

Expectations’ was serialised, where two chapters were published every

week. To ensure that the readers stayed interested, Dickens used a

variety of techniques and ended most chapters with cliff-hangers.

One technique that Dickens uses to engage the reader in this book is

the gothic setting. An example of a gothic element is found in chapter

one. “Ours was the marsh country (…) I found out for certain, that

this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard”.

‘overgrown’ suggests that the churchyard has been abandoned and not

cared for. ‘nettles’ is another gothic element because nettles are

unwanted weeds that don’t look nice. This further emphasises the

abandonment of the churchyard.

Another technique Dickens uses in ‘Great Expectations’ to engage the

reader in this book is the strong characterisation of each character.

E.g. in the start of chapter two, “My sister, Mrs Joe Gargery (…) have

a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon

her husband as well as upon me (…) She was tall and bony, and always

wore a coarse apron” The amount of detail written just to describe one

character in the novel gives the reader a good image of what Mrs Joe

Gargery would have looked like. Words like ‘har...

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...t was harsh

and child abuse. This quote also has a rhyme to it which makes it more

memorable.

Dickens included dialogue of all characters to engage the reader in

‘Great Expectations’. In chapter 7, Mrs Joe says, “if this boy ain’t

grateful this night, he never will be!”. Dialogue makes the novel more

interesting because it adds variety to it. Dickens included both 1st

person and 3rd person throughout the story. If you try to read a book

written all in the 3rd person, it would be tedious. Having dialogue

also teaches us more about the characters and the way they speak. From

the quote we can see that Mrs Joe is speaking informally because she

says “aint” which is colloquial speech for “is not”. We learn more

about the characters personality when dialogue is included and it also

makes the novel more interesting so the reader is likely to continue

reading.