Essay about Settings in Great Expectations

Great Expectations Comment on Dickens' use of setting focusing on the opening graveyard scene and the scenes with Miss Havisham set in the Satis house. GCSE Coursework 'Great Expectations' Comment on Dickens' use of setting focusing on the opening graveyard scene and the scenes with Miss Havisham set in the Satis house As a skilled writer Dickens has chosen a perfect setting in which corresponds to the involvement of his characters. The dark isolated graveyard associates with death, and provides a backdrop that is very similar to the appearance of a criminal, in the society in Dickens' time. Dickens describes the marshes as being a dark, flat wilderness.

    The renowned poet, Richard Lovelace, once wrote that "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." Although many think of a prison as a physical building or a jailhouse, it can also be a state of mind. A great number of people are imprisoned mentally and emotionally. Charles Dickens expresses this message in his eminent novel, Great Expectations. This book is about a simple laboring boy who grew into a gentleman, and slowly realized that no matter what happened in his life it couldn't change who he was on the inside. On the road to this revelation, Pip meets many incarcerated people. Through these people, Dickens delivers the message that people can be

shows us that the weather was so harsh even a man who has been though

One of the books I have recently read is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. It introduces the reader a rather unique approach into the subject of social class. Throughout the book, Pip, the main character is faced with many challenges that shape him into who he is.

Compare chapter 1 of Great Expectations, in which Pip first meets the convict, with chapter 39, when the convict returns. Charles Dickens is considered to be one of the greatest English novelists of the Victorian period. This greatest of Victorian writers was born in Landport, Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. His father John worked as a clerk in the Navy Payroll Office in Portsmouth. It was his personal experience of factory work and the living conditions of the poor that created in Dickens the compassion, which was to mark his literary works.

This shows how nasty Mrs Joe is and what Pip has to go through in his

Charles Dickens' Great Expectations Introduction: ‘Great Expectations’ was one of Dickens’ best-known novels and was written in 1860. ‘Great Expectations’ is a Bildungsroman and follows the progression of Pip from child to adult; from humble blacksmith to gentleman; from innocence to experience; from rags to riches and on his journey, Pip meets a range of interesting characters, from the comical Wemmick, to the cruel Estella. This novel reflects parts of Victorian times, with class divide, child labour and improving one’s fortunes. Dickens wrote to entertain the public and the public got a say in how the novel progressed due to the fact that Dickens wrote in monthly instalments in a magazine called ‘Household Words’.

What is the Significance of Chapter One of Great Expectations in Relation to the Novel as a Whole? 'Great Expectations' is a novel written by Charles Dickens and is considered to be one of his best stories. The plot follows a young boy named Phillip Pirrip or 'Pip' and it focuses on his growth as he matures from a young boy into a fully grown man. He had always had great expectations of himself, wishing to become someone of high social class - as this was set and written in the Victorian era when social class was a huge factor of society - and when he ends up visiting an eccentric woman called Miss Haversham he meets a beautiful young girl called Estella who becomes more important later on. After he discovers that he has a

House, we are given a vivid idea of what is in store for Pip right

“He was whatever he needed to be, what we asked him to be... a teacher, a magician, a savior, a life” (245). Mr. Watts is one of the central focuses of the story along with Dolores, Matilda’s mother. The two characters are polar opposites in the way they come to their conclusions, make their decisions and view their world. With growth comes decision making in which comes greater changes, the motif of choice is woven through the novel of Mister Pip, whether its Dolores deciding to hide “Great Expectations” from the villagers causing greater occurrences or Mr. Watts becoming a transformer and saving the day.

In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Estella Havisham and Pip are a product of physical and psychological abuse that shapes their opposing perspective in the novel. Pip understands the notion of love through Mr. Joe and his relationships with the varying characters, while Estella remains cold and incapable of loving anyone, including herself under the affluence of Miss Havisham. Estella was considered “the great expectation” at the time because she represented the beauty and affluent ideals of the Victorian Age. Pip on the other hand, an indigent boy who could scarcely sound out words and was apprenticed to a blacksmith. These two distinct, yet similar worlds of Estella and Pip will leave them longing for something more that evidently influences their perspectives of the events in the novel, the notion for love. Estella marries into an abusive relationship at the conclusion of the novel, while Pip experiences various losses of family and friends, forcing him to realize that human compassion is greater than societal standing.

As humans grow up, they must all experience the awkward phase of the teen years, as they leave behind childhood for adulthood. In these times of transformations, one often finds themselves marred by the wicked ways of naïve love and the humiliation many experience. In Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, one is able to watch an innocent boy’s transformation into a mature gentleman who is still a child at heart. Pip is plagued with the daunting responsibilities of adulthood and deciding where his loyalties lay. Torn between the alluring world of the rich and his roots in a destitute village, Pip must make a decision.

Throughout this novel, the many effects of the social class system are brought out through Pips actions. As a child, Pip attends a small school in his village, rarely learning anything. Pip tells readers “Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt kept an evening school in the

Although grandiose questions about life are a standard part of human maturation, many children and young adults with a stable family can answer these questions without drastically changing their lives. Those with steady influences often have authoritative guidance to navigate these uncertainties. Philip “Pip” Pirrip of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, however, is an orphan reared in a provincial and simple life. He lacks an intellectual father figure to answer these questions, so he is forced to elucidate his own solutions. The closest substitute to a father is Joe Gargery, Pip’s genuine and well-meaning brother-in-law. Pip’s lack of a father leads to uncertainty in his identity and questions regarding where his major influences should lie. In determining these influences, Pip seeks to redeem himself from Joe to higher society, but later does an about-face as he wishes to be redeemed by Joe.

In Great Expectations Dickens demonstrates that no matter what you go through, you are who you are. Dickens represents this with Pip, for he is the character who has undergo so many different personalities, yet found himself to be the same in the end. Pip attempted to change his life, despite social standing, and become a suitable gentleman for Estella. Sadly, he didn 't get the social title nor did he get the girl. Pip never actually had a title for himself in the beginning, and throughout the novel, never discovered his self-worth. This resulted in Pip essentially being a low class, mentally and physically abused- nobody, who had dreamed of a beautiful life.