Dickens' View of the World Shown Through the Narration of Pip in Great Expectations

Dickens' View of the World Shown Through the Narration of Pip in Great Expectations

Reading the opening chapter of Great Expectations demonstrates

something of the extraordinary range and power of Dickens language.

After a brief statement about his self-naming, which in itself is

important as it instigates the whole debate about identity in the

novel, Pip goes on to entertain us with an amusing description of his

family graves, their inscriptions, and what he, as a small boy, made

of them. The older, more sophisticated narrator explores the

imaginative but essentially innocent mind of his younger self with a

wit and vocabulary that is anything but childlike.

This introduction into young Pip's growing awareness of "the identity

of things" is violently interrupted by the sound of a "terrible voice"

that demands "wittles" and a file or promises that awful retribution

will follow. Dramatic dialogue between the child and the convict

follows. Much like Pip, the reader is suddenly thrown upside down into

an elemental nightmare ...