Great Expectations

Great expectations coursework

My essay is going to be about the 1876 edition novel ‘Great

Expectations.’ The author of this novel is Charles Dickens.

When the novel opens we meet Pip as a rather young child. Pip is the

narrator as well as the main character. This is known as the first

person. Pip as an adult talks about Pip as a child. He talks about his

life as a child and how it was a struggle without his parents being

around to help him. This makes it interesting to read.

Dickens creates sympathy for Pip by talking about his dead parents.

“As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any image of

either of them.” This suggests that Pip never saw his parents because

he was young when they died. Pip also tries to create an image of what

they looked like. Another way Dickens creates sympathy is by talking

about Pip’s dead brothers. “They all had been born on their backs with

there hands in their trouser pockets.” This makes us think of them in

a childish way like the young Pip.

In the 19th century people used to die commonly so if they read this

novel they wouldn’t suffer any sympathy because the death rate was

regular. If a person read this novel in the 20 century they would feel

sympathy because the death rate is much less and we are not used to

children dying anymore.

Dickens knew what a poor existence was like as a child because he had

been through it all. He came from a working class family. In his

school the teacher paid particular consideration to Dickens because he

was making incredible progress but he was forced to leave school at

the age of 12 and go labour in a factory because his parents were in

enormous debt. To write this book Dickens got his sympathy from his

early days....

... middle of paper ...

... English language instead of saying ‘point’ he says

‘pint’ missing out the ‘o’. this tells me that he is from a working

class not a middle class like Estella or other ladies and gentlemen.

Dickens is very intelligent the way he creates his characters names.

This helps use to discover what the characters are like and what part

they play. Mrs Joe Gargery takes on her husbands name to show other

people that she’s the one who obeys her husband. The reader sees a

different side. Mrs Joe Gargery is the one in charge and her husband

obeys her. Dickens is using ironic humour here to make us laugh at the

situation.

I liked the first two chapters of the novel that I studied because it

was very thrilling to examine about how existence was like in the

historic days. I liked the way Dickens wrote this novel because he

described the background in a lot of detail.