Sympathy for Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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Sympathy for Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens The novel Great Expectations is about a young orphan called Pip. The poor orphan lives with his sister and her husband the blacksmith. As a child he meets an escaped convict, a strange old lady Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella with whom he later falls in love with. An anonymous person allows pip with their fortune to be educated as a gentleman in London. He soon discovers the kindness and generosity was from the convict he had previously helped as a young child. This news destroys his hopes of happiness with Estella, but will luck change as he finds out more? In chapter 1 Pip talks to us briefly about himself. In a graveyard Pip happens to meet a convict who doesn’t seem to come to be a nice character at the beginning. He asks for pips help, as he is weak and hungry. He threatens Pip to get him whittles and a file. Brave Pip wanted to stick to his word and so he took them to the convict the next day. From that day on Pip never spoke about him to anyone. This took courage, as he knew he was in the wrong. This reminded Dickens of his father so he was trying to show the Victorian audience how badly the convicts were treated. The first way Dickens creates sympathy for Pip in this chapter and indeed the whole novel is through the use of narration. In the novel, Pip is writing in first person that allows him to create more sympathy for himself and tell the audience exactly how he feels. This way Pip chooses what he wants the audience to know and what he doesn’t. Pips real name in the novel is Philip Pirrip, which is alliteration. This creates sympathy for Pip as it creates humor for the audience. It’s a reflection of each other... ... middle of paper ... ...which shows that Pip is terrified of what the convict might do. We know this as Pip says ‘please sir don’t cut my throat’ When he talks to Magwitch he also uses quite quick and short sentences, as if he can’t get his words out. We get the impression that Pip is scared to talk to Magwitch incase he says the wrong thing. Pip stutters a few times during the chapter. One time is at the end of the chapter where Pip is about to leave he says ‘goo-good-night, sir’ the stutter shows his fear through his speech which makes the audience feel sympathy for him even more. The last thing Pip does in the chapter is run home. He does this because he is afraid but at the same time he knows what he has to do. I think Dickens has wrote the novel like this as his father was a convict and he wanted to show the Victorian audience how badly convicts were actually treated.

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