How does Dickens use the language to establish the setting and draw the reader into the opening chapter of Great Expectations?
Charles Dickens is one of the most famous novelists. He wrote about 15 fantastic novels, which included ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ He wrote them in his time, which was about the nineteenth Century. He was successful and his books are still being published today. I think his work is amazing, and have really enjoyed reading Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.
Dickens experiences’ of his dad being imprisoned is relevant to ‘Great Expectations’ as Magwitch; Pip’s “adopted” father was in the Hulks, which are prisons out at sea, or far from the shore.
Dickens grew up to be a social reformer and his political ideas are very obvious in this novel. For example: the reader feels very sympathetic to Magwitch by the end of the novel, as he was bad, but had been reformed and is good to Pip, and then has to be hung!
During the nineteenth century children were often caned by their parents, which is reflected in Great Expectations when Mrs Joe Gargery uses a tickler on Pip, as he went out to the graveyard. So she caned him. However how children were treated depended a lot on weather they were rich or poor but also what school they went to, if they did go to one. In Pip’s case his parents died, so had to live with his sister in poverty, with her husband Joe Gargery, who was a blacksmith.
This novel concerns the young boy Philip Pirrip. Philip was the name given of the main protagonist because early on in this book (1st chapter) Pip is very young, so Dickens has made it so that it resembles his character, which is a young and innocent child. Also, as the story goes on he grows just like a seed. (Pip –Seed, Phillip-Flower) Seeds need to be nurtured if they are to grow and flourish and I think that this story will show that, as he gets older. And his development through life after an early meeting with the escaped convict...