How Charles Dickens Creates Sympathy for Pip in Chapters 1 and 8

How Charles Dickens Creates Sympathy for Pip in Chapters 1 and 8

When we first start to read the story it is immediately obvious that

Dickens is telling the story in the first person though the eyes of

Pip. This is likely to cause us to see the story from his point of

view.

At the beginning of Great Expectations we immediately start to feel

sympathy for Pip when he tells us that his mother and farther have

died, that he has never seen a picture of them and because of this he

has to create a picture in his mind from their tombstones and we get

the feeling that he spends a lot of time visiting them. Then also the

fact that we find out that his five little brothers have died "to five

little stone lozenge's each about a foot and a half long each arranged

in a nest row" creates even more sympathy and emotion towards Pip.

Following that we find out that the place that Pip's parents are

buried is not cared for, this must create a lot of emotion for Pip

because he must be feeling like nobody but him cares for their stones

or the church yard. The village that Pip lives in is very bleak this

will create more sympathy for Pip and because of his village being so

bleak and horrid it seems like it is all too much for him which causes

him to then cry he also describes himself as a small bundle of shivers

"the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all".

We are then introduced to a "terrible man" who appears from the back

of the grave. He then starts to shout and threaten Pip "keep still you

little devil or I will cut your throat" which by this causes Pip out

of pure terror to beg for his own life "Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir"

"pray don't do it, sir." The terrible man then asks Pip to "pint" out

the place where he lives. The man then shows abuse to Pip by turning