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Great Expectations By Lloyd Jones

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In the story Mister Pip, the author Lloyd Jones used the main character's development to advance the novel's themes. The story of imagination and books starts with Matilda as the narrator. Matilda’s father lives in the mainland and so she doesn't know him as much as she knows her strict mom. To start off the book Matilda talks about the only white man that lives on the island. His name is Mr. Watts or as some people calls him "Pop Eye". In the beginning portion of the story everyone on the island was announced that the school is reopening since everyone left the island and abandoned them. Mr. Watts was the teacher and he didn't use conventional types of teaching, instead he read the kids a book called, "Great Expectations". Mr. Watts read …show more content…

From her change the theme of the story also altered.The message is the potential of imagination and literature, which means that books could easily take someone’s imagination and help a person get through hard times. In the beginning of the book Matilda didn't really know Mr. Watts or what he could teach her. She didn't have a relationship with him or Mr.Pip (main character in Great Expectations)so she wasn't aware of what her mind of thought and Mr.Watt’s words could do for her. "Because Mr. Watts was the only white for miles around, little kids stared at him until their ice blocks melted over their black hands,"(Jones 4). This quote shows the reader how the people of Bougainville including Matilda have never really contacted with Mr. Watts so they don't know who he is. No one wants to meet him because he is a different color and apparently an odd guy. “An old dog had its belly ripped open...To stare at that black dog was to see your sister or brother or mum or dad in that same state,” (Jones 40). At this point in the story everyone in the town is devastated and in a bad state of mind. This is because no one has had a connection or relationship with Mr.Watts or Mr.Pip in the novel. While everyone is suffering Mr.Watts knows what the “Power of books and imagination” could do for …show more content…

She escaped from the town to go to her father and start her own life. “It gave me a friend in Pip. It taught me you can slip under the skin of another just as easily as your own, even when that skin is white and belongs to a boy alive in Dickens’ England,” (Jones 231).This quote shows that Matilda clearly knows how much a book and her own thought could do for her. During the progress of the novel Matilda got closer and closer to Pip which eventually led to her believing that Pip is in her mindset. “Pip was my story, even if I was once a girl, and my face black as the shining night. Pip is my story, and in the next day I would try where Pip had failed. I would try to return home,” (Jones 256).Matilda’s whole life was changed by one character in a book and Mr.Watts. She was so close to Mr.Pip as a person she imagined herself just like him. At the start of the novel Matilda wasn’t aware of Mr.Pip or what a simple book could do in her head. As the book progressed she started to attach with Mr.Pip in many ways in her life. This made her feel like whatever Mr.Pip could do she could also do. Matilda is clearly a dynamic character because of the way she changed her physical and mental state. In the start of the book she didn’t know much about Mr.Watts and Mr.Pip. As the novel went to the halfway mark Matilda instantly noticed how much power books and imagination have. At the

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