Impressions Gained of Pip's Character from Great Expectations

Impressions Gained of Pip's Character from Great Expectations

'Pip' is very much a child in the the first chapter. However, it is

Pip narrating it as an adult ( retrospective narrator). You know he is

a child by his 'childish' thoughts and his rather odd imagination. He

manages to come up with the 'childish conclusion' that his father is a

'square, stout, dark man, with curly hair' just by looking at his

fathers tombstone. Also, that his mother was 'freckled and sickly'. It

is quite bizarre that Pip has managed to conjour up that idea from a

tombstone. I think Dickens has done this to prove a childs nieve, yet

wild imagination. I think Pip tries to trace his parents or identify

them this way just so he can feel placed in the world and so he can

feel he fits in. He also does this to find out who he is and a bit

about himself and his family.

Pip also feels for his family very much, even though he never knew

them, not even a photograph as 'their days were long before the days

of photographs'. Dickens uses words like 'mine' or the repeated word

'family'. This proves t...