Magwitch

Magwitch

  • Submitted By: vicci42
  • Date Submitted: 01/05/2010 6:21 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 446
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 794

Great Expectations

In Great Expectations how has dickens created a character that is both memorable and striking in Magwitch.

Charles Dickens wrote the novel Great Expectations, which focused on the life of pip. Dickens was influenced by his past. Dickens was born in Portsmouth , when he was five his family moved to Chatham in Kent. Later in his childhood Dickens relocated to Camden ; town I London when he was ten. Dickens writing was effective because he had a pleasant younger life time.
Great Expectations was published in 1860-1861, through the novel he looks at the earlier time (1812-1814). Dickens usually looks at change. Like people moving to different cities to work. Charles Dickens was deeply concerned about the struggles of poor and mistreated people during this period, people who simply couldn’t afford to pay their bills and then went to debtors prison. A criminal who was considered dangerous would have been sent to Australia to serve time. I think that he used his fathers experience of prison to base Magwitch’s character on. In Dickens time children would work up to 16 hours a day in poor conditions by pulling carts in a factory but it would only earn pennies a day. Dickens worked at a shoe polish factory at the age of 12 an would have experienced the harsh working conditions to young children.

In his novel Great Expectations , Charles Dickens introduces the reader to a character called Pip. He tries to make the reader feel sorry for him because he can’t say his own name properly and he is unsure about who is parents are. We know this because he is looked after by his sister Mrs Joe Gargery . He doesn’t know much about his parents, the reader finds out because he is looking at his parents tombstone to find out information about them. He thinks his mothers name is ‘Also Georgiana’. This would make the reader laugh as the reader finds it funny that he thought his mothers name was ‘Also’ . Pip never knew his parents and portrays him...