Revealing the Benefactor in Great Expectations

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In the novel Great Expectations, Pip is set in a poor common town and curiously comes into wealth which leads him on a journey to discover his own expectations. Using foreshadowing and pathetic fallacy, Dickens’ prepares readers for the climax of the story where Pip learns that it is Magwitch who is the benefactor. Dickens’ use of the presence of the convict theme, Pip’s expectations, and weather all help the reader understand Pip’s final realization of his true benefactor. First, Dickens’ uses the convict theme to repeatedly foreshadow Magwitch’s return. As a boy, when Pip is at the Three Jolly Bargemen with Joe, a strange man who seemed to be a former convict was stirring his drink with the file he had given his convict (Magwitch). As they are leaving, the strange man gives Pip a small sum of money, afterwards Pip explains, “He stirred his rum-and-water pointedly at me...and he stirred it and he tasted it: not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file”(Dickens, 81). This passage shows that although the small sum of money was strange cons...

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