Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

Describe how Dickens creates atmosphere and introduces characters in

Chapter One of Great Expectations.

In this essay I am going to describe how Dickens successfully uses

tension and drama to create atmosphere and to introduce his characters

status, emotions and identity in the opening chapter of Great

Expectations. The central character, Pip, is followed from youth as he

makes the journey from poverty to riches and back again as he attempts

to fulfil his own great expectations. To do this I will be examining

in close detail the techniques he used to sustain the reader’s

interest in the first chapter.

Dickens introduces the opening of this novel with death “from their

tombstones” and violence “Don’t cut my throat!” This is a typical

convention of gothic literature. This chapter is set among desolate

marshes in a ruined graveyard. The weather plays an important part in

the opening chapter “the sky was a row of long angry red lines” and

“dense black lines”; “the wind was “rushing”. These are examples of

pathetic fallacy, this is when the weather is used to reflect what is

happening in the story. To create atmosphere Dickens drags out how

Pip’s family is all dead and how Pip is alone in the world, “dead and

buried”. This makes the readers feel sorry for Pip because he is all

alone in the world and we don’t know yet whether he has somebody to

look after him or not. However later on in the chapter we are told

that he lives with his sister and her husband the blacksmith “[Mr.

And] Mrs. Joe Gargery”.

Dickens uses a lot of metaphors to describe what he is saying in the

story “Savage lair from ...

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...man who may be heading towards the end of his life “A man

whose legs are mumbled and stiff”. In the eyes of young Pip, he

describes Magwitch as though he were “eluding the hands of the dead

people,” this conveys an image of dead people pulling him in to the

grave, which is a classical image of gothic literature “hellish”

On the whole, the convict has a sense of humor “I wish I was a frog”,

he also makes idle threats and his emotions are shown.

In conclusion Dickens successfully creates atmosphere and introduces

character in chapter one of great expectations with the use of

repetition “he tilted me again”, metaphors “the low leaden line beyond

was the river” and the use of verbs instead of adjectives “lamed” and

“stung”. Humor is also used to add drama to this chapter “I earnestly

expressed my hope that he wouldn’t”