"It is the habit of my imagination", wrote one Victorian novelist, "to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves, as of the character itself." Explore the relationship between character and environment in any one or two fictional works of the period.
Both Great Expectations and David Copperfield are characterised by the close relationship between the characters and their immediate environment. This is emblematic of all Dickens' novels, reflecting Dickens' own life, recreating his experiences and journeys, using people and places to symbolise feelings and emotions.
David Copperfield opens to `Pip' in a churchyard on the eerie marshes of Kent sombrely reading his parents' gravestones. Dickens describes the scenery as:
"Dark flat wilderness...intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea" (Dickens 6)
This creates a picture of grey gloominess, which embodies how Pip is feeling at the time, as in the next sentence, he starts to cry. The sea is described as a "distant savage lair" (6), and the prison ship which is in the distance, on the sea, known as `The Hulks', Pip describes as "a wicked Noah's Ark" (39). This implies that he is scared of the sea, and The Hulks, and as this is most likely reflecting his state of mind, the reader presumes that this is how he feels a lot of the time when he is at home with Mrs. Joe and on the marshes. Home is a very uncomfortable place for Pip, made so by his sister and the contempt she holds for Pip.
In chapter eight, Pip finds himself at Satis House, home of Miss Havisham. Everything tha...
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...n times because travelling was just becoming a possibility, what with developments with transport, and people wanted to read about travelling, journeys and moving around. The Micawbers, in David Copperfield become "purposeful travellers, emigrating to Australia along with the Peggottys'." (Slater, 103) Magwitch, in Great Expectations is also for part of the novel, abroad, in New South Wales. This opened up the possibilities for Victorians to travel.
Bibliography
Andrews, M. Dickens on England and the English. Harvester Press, Sussex: 1979
Dexter, W. The England of Dickens. Purnell, England: 1925
Dickens, C. David Copperfield, Penguin, London: 1994
Dickens, C. Great Expectations, Penguin, London: 1994
Schwarzbach, F. S. Dickens and the City, Athlone Press, London: 1979
Slater, M. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Dickens. Duckworth, London: 1999
As a young child living in England’s marshes, Pip was a humble, kind, and gentle character. He lived an impoverished life with his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe Gargery, the neighborhood blacksmith. Pip was grateful for everything he had, including his few possessions and his family’s care. When he was offered the chance to play at The Satis House, the home of the wealthy Miss Havisham, Pip went in order to make his family happy.
Charles Dickens utilizes his life for inspiration for the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. They both struggle with their social standing. Dickens loved plays and theatre and therefore incorporated them into Pip’s life. Dickens died happy in the middle class and Pip died happy in the middle class. The connection Dickens makes with his life to Pip’s life is undeniable. If readers understand Dickens and his upbringing then readers can understand how and why he created Pip’s upbringing. Charles Dickens’ life, full of highs and lows, mirrors that of Pip’s life. Their lives began the same and ended the same. To understand the difficulty of Dickens’ childhood is to understand why his writing focuses on the English social structure. Dickens’ life revolved around social standing. He was born in the lower class but wasn’t miserable. After his father fell into tremendous debt he was forced into work at a young age. He had to work his way to a higher social standing. Because of Dicken’s constant fighting of class the English social structure is buried beneath the surface in nearly all of his writings. In Great Expectations Pip’s life mirrors Dickens’ in the start of low class and the rise to a comfortable life. Fortunately for Dickens, he does not fall again as Pip does. However, Pip and Dickens both end up in a stable social standing.
The reader's curiosity is aroused because we are wondering why Pip is there. The surrounding landscape in the beginning is described as a 'distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing'. This makes the reader feel apprehensive about what is going to take place in this setting. Pip is described as an orphan; he has never seen his parents and he lives with his sister (Mrs. Joe Gargery) and her husband. The description of the deprived looking boy alone in the graveyard adds to the sense of inquisitive drama.
No novel boasts more varied and unique character relationships than Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. This essay will serve to analyze three different relationships, paying special attention to the qualities that each uphold. Dickens created three types of character relationships: true friends, betrayed friends, and loving relatives.
The setting for this novel was a constantly shifting one. Taking place during what seems to be the Late Industrial Revolution and the high of the British Empire, the era is portrayed amongst influential Englishmen, the value of the pound, the presence of steamers, railroads, ferries, and a European globe.
The Victorian novel has performed an important service in Eurocentric epistemologies and colonial ideologies in formulating the colonial discourse and establishing the alterity of `self' and the `Other'. Both Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, like most novels produced in the Victorian period, contain colonial subtexts and form a significant part of the cultural discourse of the empire. Moreover, both Jane Eyre and Great Expectations derive greatly from the imperial discourse in their stereotypical ways of representing the non- Western world.
“Themes and construction: Great Expectations” Exploring Novels (2005): 8. Online. Discovering Collection. 07 Feb. 2006. Available http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/DC.
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens is a fascinating tale of love and fortune. The main character, Pip, is a dynamic character who undergoes many changes through the course of the book. Throughout this analysis the character, Pip will be identified and his gradual change through the story will be surveyed.
It can be seen through Dickens’s highly successful novel Great Expectations, that his early life events are reflected into the novel. Firstly the reader can relate to Dickens’s early experiences, as the novel’s protagonist Pip, lives in the marsh country, and hates his job. Pip also considers himself, to be too good for his ...
In Great Expectations, the three main settings: the Forge, Satis House and London affect the atmosphere of the novel, as well as Pip’s emotions. The three main locations make Pip who he is, and it represents the aspects of himself – his hopes, fear, pride, and shame. Each of these three locations has symbolic characters which represents the aspects of Pip and also the mood.
Charles Dickens is well known for his distinctive writing style. Few authors before or since are as adept at bringing a character to life for the reader as he was. His novels are populated with characters who seem real to his readers, perhaps even reminding them of someone they know. What readers may not know, however, is that Dickens often based some of his most famous characters, those both beloved or reviled, on people in his own life. It is possible to see the important people, places, and events of Dickens' life thinly disguised in his fiction. Stylistically, evidence of this can be seen in Great Expectations. For instance, semblances of his mother, father, past loves, and even Dickens himself are visible in the novel. However, Dickens' past influenced not only character and plot devices in Great Expectations, but also the very syntax he used to create his fiction. Parallels can be seen between his musings on his personal life and his portrayal of people and places in Great Expectations.
Pip begins as a young boy, innocent without any moral corrupt. Pip steals food and a file from his sister and uncle to carry out the orders of a convict he stumbles across in the marshes. Knowing that it is disrespectful to disregard the orders of an elder, whether the...
Great Expectations and Oliver Twist are representative of the works produced by Charles Dickens over his lifetime. These novels exhibit many similarities - perhaps because they both reflect painful experiences that occurred in Dickens' past.
Starting out straight from the beginning of Pip's life he is already in pain from losing his parents. He then must live with his older sister Ms.Joe who puts him through a great deal of torture during his childhood. Such as when he went to the graveyard without her approval, she filled his mouth with tarred water just to prove a point to him. Not only was it Ms.Joe though, but the convict as well who put the dark image in his head of the certain someone who would come to kill him if he didn't bring him what he wanted which Pip eventually could not stop being concerned about after he came back from the graveyard. Once Pip starts to visit Miss Havisham though it is obvious the way she has designed the Satis House is in such a low, dark, depressing emotion because of the experiences she's had to suffer during her past. Miss Havisham's suffering has defined her character though. "Miss Havisham herself, of course, is the big victim of the novel, abandoned on her wedding day ...
Throughout both Jane Eyre and Great Expectations the reader can identify many universal themes of the Victorian period. It is shown through the similarities and differences of setting, social and gender mobility, the power of the unconscious, and the main character’s struggles with their internal passions, that Brontë and Dickens’ shared common bases for writing their works of literature.