Great Expectations

English Coursework - Great Expectations

Charles Dickens was born in 1812. He lived with his father for the

first 12 years for his life, until his father fell deep into debt. He

then went to live in a prison until his father paid off his debts.

During the time before he wrote ‘Oliver Twist’, two main events in

history occurred. These were that slavery was abolished by

Wilberforce, and the Chartists started their campaign to help the poor

people of Britain. These indirectly inspired him to write ‘Oliver

Twist’.

Oliver twist is a story about a boy who is born into an orphanage from

his unknown mother, who dies giving birth. He stays in the orphanage

until he is sold to an undertakers for 5 pounds as slave labour. He is

abused at the undertakers and so he decides to run away to London, to

get a better life. When he arrives, he is taken in by a pickpocket and

taught how to steal for a living. He is caught on what seems like his

first attempt. He is put on trial, and is released, due to a last

minute witness statement. The prosecutor sympathises with Oliver, and

so he adopts him legally.

This novel was a large success because of the relation people made

with real life experiences. The aimed-at audience were about 20 years

old, and some of them had experienced what happened in the story. This

book stirred a lot of people. It stirred them enough to abolish child

labour, or at least to question the decisions some of the politicians

made and what effect they would have on the people.

There was a long period of time between the writing and success of

Oliver Twist and the writing of the next book, ‘Great Expectations’.

in this time, he left his wife and 10 children, he wrote another

novel, ‘A Christmas Carol’, and started giving public readings of his

work. He also started a monthly publication of his novels. This was

how he distributed ‘Great Expectations’.

Great Expectations was a story about a boy called Phillip Pirrip,

known as Pip, who doesn’t know any of his parents or 5 brothers, as

they died while he was too young to be able to remember them. His only

relation is his sister and her husband, the local blacksmith, and she

runs a very strict household. The story starts where Pip is in the

village church yard. He is cornered by an escaped convict, called

Magwitch. He threatens Pip and says that if he doesn’t bring him food

and a file, that he will hurt him. Pip runs home and steals a pork pie