Great_Expections

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, England. Dickens wrote Great Expectations during the Victorian Era and the Industrial Revolution. Factories were replacing farms as a means of occupation. In the factories the workers lived in horrible conditions. Children were often used in the factories because they required less pay and could manoeuvre around the machinery better. Charles Dickens grew up in a large household and his parents spent money they didn't have. This led to Dickens being pulled out of school and having to work in a bottle factory to support his family at a young age and to his father being placed in debtor's prison, leaving Charles alone in London In this essay I’m going to write about how Dickens creates sympathy for Pip in Great Expectations. I’m mainly going to concentrate writing about how Dickens used different techniques to make us fell sorry for young Pip. I’ am also going to explore the language which Dickens uses to create sympathy for Pip. Dickens makes pips character a poor orphan who is much unloved. We first feel sorry for Pip when we realise that pip has never met his parents before and he does not ’t even know what they look like “as I never saw any likeness of either of them” He uses the word “never” to make the reader feel affection for pip. Also his 5 little brothers had all died too “were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine” Pip lives in Britain with his sister, Mrs Joe Gargery and Joe Gargery the blacksmith. Mrs. Joe had brought Pip up "by hand." Charles Dickens used the term "by hand' to say that Pip was punished by physical force from Mrs. Joe this creates sympathy for Pip because his getting beaten by his elder sister and abused, we feel sorry for Pip and hate towards Mrs Joe because we know that Pip is a young boy by saying “My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip” this shows us proof that Pip is a very young boy and can’t even pronounce his name, and we as readers are felling very sorry for him because he can’t pronounce his name and getting beaten by his elder sister at a such a early age. Pip is introduced in the first chapter of the novel, he is visiting the graves of his parents, when Dickens describes the setting of the churchyard. It’s dark with nettles everywhere. “That this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard” this setting makes Pip feel sad and unhappy because its dark, cold and he’s at the churchyard to see his family’s graves and we also see that this churchyard it’s like hunted (neglected), we also see that Pip is all alone, which would also make Pip feel scared. This will make the readers feel sorry for Pip because they know that if anything happens to him there won’t be any one to help him because there isn’t anyone for him to go to. The book describes the churchyard as a “dark flat wilderness” this makes the reader scared for pip and wants to read more because anything could happen to him as he is alone in a place like that. Dickens has made us worry about Pip when the convict comes. Pip was probably really scared because the convict says in a scary voice “keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat! This shows that Magwhich is a bad man because he would have killed pip. This is where the readers really feel scared and sympathy for Pip as he lives in a bad place and has a horrible life. Magwhich tries to scare Pip by threatening him, but he doesn’t actually kill him, he’s just scaring Pip into doing what he wants. He also says “or I’ll have your heart and liver out” even though Magwhich is threatening to kill pip, Pips still nice to him by saying “There sir! Said I” this shows us that poor people can be kind even when Pip life is in danger his still being nice to the convict and respectful , this makes the reader feel more sorry for Pip when we see how kind and innocent he is. Then Magwhich gets scared as he finds out that the man with the scars on his face was in the graveyard and told pip to go back home for his own safety, this shows his not actually that horrible because he lets him go home In this first chapter the reader doesn't really get a good idea of what Pip looks like, but in chapter eight Pip gets called a common boy. Pip also gets told that he has coarse hands and common boots by Estella, this hurts him emotionally and say’s to himself “I was humiliated, hurt, offended, angry”, the writer used emotive language “humiliated, hurt” this shows how Pip express his feelings to the reader, and we as a reader are feeling sorry for him and hate towards Estella. Throughout the story Dickens uses the first person point of view so that you know Pip is narrating. for e.g. we know he talks first person point of view by saying “I called myself Pip” this shows us that he is talking to us directly, and this is effective in making us see things from Pip's point of view, and helps us understand his emotions, and how he is feeling