Great Expectations by a famous Charles Dickens Essay Example for Free

Great Expectations by a famous Charles Dickens Essay Great Expectations written by a famous man called Charles dickens. Great expectations is a famous and tense novel which was first published in the year 1860 to 1861 every fortnight in a magazine called all year round. The plot is based on a young boy called Pip, who in the first chapter meets and odd fellow in a gloomy, dark cemetery, pip walks on and soon finds himself turned upside down bye an ex-convict who threatens pip at the throat that he would cut out his heart and his liver if pip dose not do as he says. This dark gloomy fellow scares pip which makes you sympathize for pip. In chapter 8, pip is at a house with his mean sister and her kind and caring blacksmith husband Joe. As pip is a working class orphan he has no parents just is evil sister. Then a rich old, creepy women called Miss havishem asks pip to come round and to play, as he doesnt want to, his sister forced him. When he arrives he ends up in a room with no external light only candles and a dead like figure who demands him to play is Miss Havishem, she demands him to play with her beautiful older then pip daughter, Estella, whom pip falls in love with, you feel sorry for pip now because he cant get her because she is upper class and he is garbage to her. In chapter one, Dickens sets the scene by describing the marshes, saying it is an open dark place and thats were pip lives, so it make you sympathise for pip. When Magwitch comes, the mood changes to scary. When pip meets magwitch at the old gibbet, he says a gibbet with some chains hanging to it which had one held a pirate. The man was limping on towards him, as if he were the pirate come to life, he was using his imagination as if magwitch was the pirates ghost which has come to life, which gives the reader the effect of an old, white, dusty, see-through pirate has returned. When Dickens describes Miss Havisham room, he says it was a large room, well lighted with candles; no glimpse of daylight was to be seen. It seems pitch black but only candles laying around, pip sees everything is faded and old, her white wedding dress which she is still wearing, is white no more, but torn and ripped and grey. All clocks have stopped at the same time in this room. As if time has come to a stand still, except for the old wrinkles lady in the chair. Reading this makes you feel scared because if you were pip, then you would not want to stay in the room. In chapter 1 in the eerie settings of the marshes, we meet the sinister character called Magwitch. As he just pops out of the bushes and bellows hold yer noise or ill cut your throat, we get an image of a ruffled up man, a man with no hat but only rag on his head and broken shoes, and he is soaked in water and mud. When we see that he has a shackle on his leg we know he is an escaped convict. When he threatens pip to cut out his heart and liver and lies about having someone else who will get him when he is asleep in his cosy bed, then you see how much he wants the food and file. It is ironic that magwitch will be his benefactor after all his threats and bullying. When pip walks into Miss Havishem room and sees its all dark, we get a feeling of eerie. All the things the rooms are grey and aged, just like her, dickens writes:- Her shoes were white, a long white vale, I saw everything in my view which ought to be white. He repeats the word white, which gives an effect of how old everything is. He describes she is like a corpse I sometimes have sick fancies miss havishem says and then she says she wants pip to play and clicks her fingers at pip and makes pip fell uncomfortable, which is weird for an old lady to demand a young boy to play. Pip who is the main character of Great Expectations is an orphan that lives in a boggy environment which makes you feel sorry for pip. He then meets magwitch and even tho he scares pip, as dickens describes him as a bundle of shivers pip still remembers his manners and he has respect for elders even magwitch. Half way through dickens changes 1st, 3rd person which show how small he is in retrospective view. When pip enters the room with Miss Havishem in it, he feels scared but he is still polite towards her. When she I talking to pop he tries to avoid eye contact wit her when Miss Havishem asks if he is scared of a women who has not daylight since before he was born, he lies and says no. when she calls Estella in the room, pip immediately fall in love with her, but when she says no because he is a working class boy, he turn his back on Joe and hates him because he did teach him how to be a gentle man and cries then kicks the wall. In Great Expectations, Dickens writes in the first person about Pip life. Chapters one and eight are the two key chapters that are enough to hook the reader. Dickens includes strange characters, like Magwitch in the cemetery. The story is a journey of pips life from child hood to man hood and it shows all his emotions and fears through out. Dickens uses his imagination which appeals to the audience and his vocabulary to his advantage, writing out all pips emotions, making you feel as if you were Pip, which makes this a very good and famous story. All of the characters are different and each has their own dramatic events. Great expectation is a well known novel because it hooks you from the 1st chapter all the way to the end.