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Essay on thematic analysis
Analysis of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Analysis of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
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Through the first pages of Charles Dickens novel “Great Expectations” it is effective in showing a life history of the main character Pip and presenting him to the responder. Dickens goal is to play upon the responders emotions and he achieves this through strong emotions and beliefs and the use of social comment.
The first pages of “Great Expectations” is a simple clear cut description of the working class and young children during the 18th and 19th centuries. Dickens begins to present the life of Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip who is part of this working class genre. From the opening paragraph we are given insight into the education or lack of when that young Philip’s “infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip”. The way in which this is told suggests that it is all in the past and Pip is reminiscing on his past.
Pip continues his early history by informing the responder about his family: mother, father, five brothers and sisters. Pip explains “since I never sat my mother or father… my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.” This quote is evoking and places a great deal of sympathy upon Pip. This ties in with Pips description of life with it’s sad and dismal childhood.
Pip then introduces his feelings and memories towards his brothers “five stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long”. As this quote suggest his brothers are all dead and Pip gives the impression of slight ignorance to the situation. The audience is told of the one sole relative who is Mrs Joe Gargery, who is the wife of the local blacksmith.
Dickens continues to write Pip as retelling his early childhood. This entire section is devoted to a long, bleak and even scary description of his town in the “marsh country, down near the river, within…. 20 miles of the sed”. Dickens writes Pip as using words such as “bleak” and “overgrown” and using phrases such as “Dark, flat wilderness” to describe the marshes, “low leaden line” to describe the river and “distant savage lair” to describe the sea. Perhaps the most realistic and sympathy arousing description is when Pip describes himself in context to the rest of the landscape- “and that small bundle of shivers afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip”. This is so effective due to the fact everyone can relate to a feeling of fear or sadness at one time or another.
I went for the Career Network Event and it was a great learning experience for me. I went there trying to apply everything that I learned from my job search class and it was a success. Because I had the chance to speak to the employer of my interest, and I everything went as planned, I remember my professor in class told us to make sure we have a goal and to know which company that we would like to work for and just go for it. I went in there and I did the exact thing that he told us. I remember before taking this class I used to try to speak to every single one of employer and then I put everything in one folder. Later on when I went to contact the job that I was interested in, I would get all the employers mixed up and because of that, that cost me a lot of jobs that I always wanted in the past.
‘Great Expectations’ showcases the variety of ways in which Pip discovers a sense of belonging and makes us question our own choices in life and how belonging is not always apparent at the time. Relationships and places are closely intertwined with a person’s sense of acceptance and can make all the difference in being fulfilled mentally in life which is shown in both a negative and positive note in ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Pleasantville’.
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.
In his early existence, extraordinary young Pip lives in impoverished house in Kent, England with his sister, Mrs. Gargery and her husband, Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. Here he is constantly beaten into submission by his caring sister. When these beating fail to correct Pip he is then subjected to the atrocious tar water. Then one evening while masquerading as a pleasant hostess, Mrs. Gargery learns of a splendid opportunity for Pip, the privilege to travel to a wealthy mistress’s house, Mrs. Havisham’s house.
After being very ill Pip realises that being a gentleman means more than having money and an education. Many of Dickens books are about childhood difficulties. Perhaps this is because he was drawing on the experience of his own difficult childhood and his own desire, like Pips to become a gentleman. Dickens books are also about the class struggle, cruelty, inequality and injustice. Punishment was harsh such as deportation to do hard labour in Australia for small crimes or public hanging.
Nature and instinct of mankind harvests a constant craving, lust, and ambitious drive for self-improvement. The struggles of life to have one’s voice heard, make a difference, be loved and remembered, strives individuals to leave an eternal mark on mankind’s earth dwelling timeline. These motives keep us moving forward day by day. In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens tells the tale of a glaringly ambitious orphan child “raised by hand” (5) elbowing his way up the social class ladder during the Victorian Era. The vicissitudes and unexpected events in his life, stand no chance against the instinctively driven and sustained determination that overpowers him. He is highly motivated and bluntly refuses to settle for anything other than the best. Pip is continuously challenged with a burning desire on his mind to outdo his own self and heighten his educational, social and, moral standards.
...rity, and the ending of his story he has sealed with pain and hardships of life. From losing his parents and sister, his best friend, being treated cold hearted by the love of his life Pip still manages to make it out in an okay way with the little hope with Estella and his close one's child who looks just like him in a scary way. It is not the best ending but it could've been worst for the young man. Pip's idea of life is truly suffering from the worst and getting only a little bit of resemblance from it.
desire to improve his station in life. He is raised by his sister, and her husband, Joe Gargery. Then Pip
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 ...
“About the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: The Similarities Between Dickens and Pip.” A Date with Dickens. Oprah’s Book Club. 6 December 2010. Web. 21 March 2014.
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.
These elements are crucial to the structure and development of Great Expectations: Pip's maturation and development from child to man are important characteristics of the genre to which Great Expectations belongs. In structure, Pip's story, Great Expectations, is a Bildungsroman, a novel of development. The Bildungsroman traces the development of a protagonist from his early beginnings--from his education to his first venture into the big city--following his experiences there, and his ultimate self-knowledge and maturation. Upon the further examination of the characteristics of the Bildungsroman as presented here it is clear that Great Expectations, in part, conforms to the general characteristics of the English Bildungsroman. However, there are aspects of this genre from which Dickens departs in Great Expectations. It is these departures that speak to what is most important in Pip's development, what ultimately ma...
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.
Pip encounters all of the influential people in his life during his childhood. The first and most obvious are his family. Mrs. Joe and Joe Gargery, Pip’s sister and brother-in-law, are the only family that Pip has ever known. Mrs. Joe Gargery is Joe’s wife and Pip’s only living relative. She is a very domineering woman who is always punishing Pip for something. Joe is like a father to Pip, who goes to Joe with all of his problems and worries. They are always truthful with each other and protect each other from Mrs. Joe when she is on the rampage. Despite the fact that Joe is an adult, he is also Pip’s only real friend during his childhood. Joe is the most loyal person in Pip’s life.
In conclusion, Dickens portrays the novels title, Great Expectations, through Pip’s desires and dreams and luck. Once he finds out his secret benefactor was Magwitch, he is surprised. Pip has had many great expectations which he was able to fulfill through the aid of Magwitch. Apart from Pip’s expectations of riches and importance of being a gentleman, the readers have expectations of the novel having many turning points due to Dickens ability to craft a consistent plot in which there is a fluency in all angles. Pip had high hopes, or Great Expectations, for everything which blindly seems right to him were not carried out.