Charles Dickens: Creating Emotions for the Reader

Charles Dickens, the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens, was born in Landport on 7th February 1812. John Dickens worked as a clerk at the Navy pay office in Portsmouth. He later found work in Chatham and Charles; the second of seven children, went to the local school. Dickens father, John Dickens, found it extremely difficult to provide for his family on his meagre income. This resulted in the family being forced to sell most of their possessions but that still was not enough to satisfy his creditors and he ended up being arrested and put in Marshalsea Prison. His father was apparently the inspiration for the character of Mr Micawber in “David Copperfield” and also within “Great Expectations” the character Magwitch is seen as a father like figure who is a convict. Both characters were created and influenced by Dickens’s past. Once his father was imprisoned the entire family, apart from Charles, were sent to Marshalsea along with their patriarch. Charles was 12 years old when he was taken out of school and sent to work in Warren's blacking factory and endured appalling conditions as well as loneliness and despair. He said that it was the most terrible time of his life and these experiences that he endured were written about in some of his work. Six months after being sent to Marshalsea, one of John Dickens's relatives died. He was left enough money in the will to pay off his debts and to leave prison. After three long years Charles was returned to school, but the experience and suffering he endured was never forgotten and later became fictionalised in two of his better-known novels “David Copperfield” and “Great Expectations”.

Some of the inheritance that Charles’s father had been given was used to get Charles educated at a nearby ...

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...sion with my tickled frame”. This shows us that Mrs Joe is dominative and extremely unkind.

In conclusion Dickens manipulates the reader’s emotions by the use of long complex sentences that are broken up with commas to describe people and surroundings, these vivid descriptions add emotion and can create atmosphere exceedingly well. He uses so many adjectives in his writing and together with verbs it really captures the reader’s imagination. Of all the characters in "Great Expectations" it is Pip that demands sympathy the most. In my opinion I think that Dickens does extremely well to generate the significant amount of sympathy that he does for Pip. He also manages to create a certain amount of sympathy for some of the other characters as well. Overall I feel that “Great Expectations” is a great novel that is well written with diverse and complex themes throughout.