How Charles Dickens Creates Sympathy for his Characters in Great Expectations

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How Charles Dickens Creates Sympathy for his Characters in Great Expectations

Charles Dickens, an author in Victorian England, suffered a harrowing

and hard life. He was born in 1812 and having to work at a

boot-blacking factory from the age of 12, had a lasting effect on him.

The hurt and pain he went through as a young boy, influenced the

characters, settings and overall plots of many of his books. He showed

resentment towards his father because Dickens was sent to work to pay

of his fathers debts. His experiences in the factory are displayed, in

one of his more famous novels. 'David Copperfield', as he described it

to be 'the secret agony of my soul'. He worked in the blacking factory

until 185, when he showed his hurt and disgust to his parents by

saying, 'how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age'. In

1827, Dickens went to work for a firm of solicitors, but he quickly

found he didn't like the law, possible because of his father's earlier

problems with it, and he found himself being drawn into the literacy

world. He got to write instalments of his later classic novels in

local magazines and published every fortnight. This resulted in his

novels being so long. Dickens' style of writing is rather long winded

but very literate. Even though Charles Dickens wasn't educated at a

young age his writing skills were extraordinary. His use of language

obviously creates many emotions for the reader when reading his

novels. One of the main emotions Dickens creates very well is

sympathy. This is displayed in many of novels, especially 'Great

Expectations'.

In Chapter 1, Charles Dickens creates sympathy for two of the main

characters, Pip and Magwitch. It is written in the 1st person and

therefore automatically emotionally involves the reader. As the book

is narrative, we quickly come to the conclusion Pip is the main

character, in the novel. The way in which Dickens creates sympathy for

the young boy, Pip, is to describe him as innocent and slightly

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