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The Opening Chapters in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre Essay

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How effective are the opening chapters in Great Expectations and Jane
Eyre?

In my essay i will be explaining and comparing the opening paragraphs of "Great Expectations" ang "Jane Eyre". The author of "Great
Expectations" is Charles Dickens (1812-70). Dickens was a middle class man who was well known and wealthy. He had his own magazine, called
"All the year round", in which he published "Great Expectations" over a period of 59 weeks; one chapter a week was published his magazine.
He wrote it in 1860 and it was published between December 1860 and
August 1861.

"Jane Eyre" was published in 1847 and written by Charlotte Bronte but under the name of Currer Bell because it was hard for a women in the
Victorian times to publish …show more content…

After this Jane retaliated and called him a "wicked and cruel boy" then they broke out into a fight. Mrs Reed saw this fight and instructed her servant to put Jane into the "red room".

Both "Great Expectations" and "Jane Eyre" are set in the Victorian times. Pip and Jane are both orphans and are threatened with the use of violence. Pip is treatened with the use of mental violence by the escaped prosoner. Where as Jane is threatened with physical violence from John Reed.

"Great Expectations" opens in the churchyard, in the late afternoon, deserted apart from Pip who is looking at the gravestones. The churchyard is in the marsh country down by the river. The churchyard is very dull and dingy and it is also very neglected, "black place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard". This place is dull and probably not many people visit the graveyard. Nobody has bothered doing any gardening which makes it a very steriotypical graveyard.

"Jane Eyre" opens in a rainy, winter's afternoon inside the Reeds house. Jane is in the breakfast room reading a book behind a curtain
"Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass". The Reeds house is Troy Franklin

quite expensive because in Victorian times it would be very expensive to have scarlet drapery. At the very start of the chapter it

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