Strong and Vivid Images of Characters and Settings in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Strong and Vivid Images of Characters and Settings in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

From the Opening chapter, chapter 1 we gain lots of detailed

information about pip and get an insight on Victorian life styles.

Pips mother and father have both died as well as his five brothers,

this shows how tragic infant mortality was during the Victorian

period. Pip Is an very imaginative boy we learn this by when pip is

looking at his mum and dad grave stones, he imagines what they would

look like. This adds sympathy for pip and shows his imagination. Pip

is a young and polite child , we can instantly figure this. Pip speaks

very polite this suggests that pip has had good up bringing, pip is

even polite towards convict this supports the fact he has had a good

up bringing. When the convict asks 'tell us your name?' Pip just

replies 'Pip, Pip sir' this is one of many examples showing Pip

constantly being polite. Throughout the novel Pip is polite although

Magwitch the convict is a bad man whom has committed a terrible crime

Pip still gives respect . The convicts asks many of questions to pip

such as 'pint the place?' Dickens deliberately spells this wrong to

show how uneducated Magwitch really is, Dickens has also done this to

show the clash of social class between Magwitch and Pip. Magwitch asks

many questions which places young Pip under enormous pressure, but Pip

answers honestly as possible. Magwitch even threatens to cut Pips

throat , keeping in mind that Pip is only around the age of ten and

eleven, this must be very fearful for Pip. Dickens describes Magwitch

as:

'A man who had been soaked in water and smothered in mud and lamed by

stones and cut by flints and stung by nettles and torn by briars , who

limped and shivered'

From this quotation Dickens uses several different techniques such as

emotive language repartition and adjectives. The description gives us

a really good image of how Magwitch has been living.