Creating and Maintaining Suspense in Great Expectations

Discuss the ways in which Dickens creates and maintains suspense in

chapter 39 of Great Expectations.

Charles Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812, during the

Victorian era. He was born in Portsmouth but spent most of his life in

London. He was considered to be the best author of Victorian times and

his work is still very famous today.

His father was a well paid clerk in the Navy and his family were well

off and very high up in the social classes. But in 1814 his father

fell into a lot of debt and ended up in prison. This made the Dickens

family fall down the social class ladder and become very poor. While

Charles's father was in prison, he died this meant that Charles had a

very traumatic childhood. This childhood has featured in many of

Dickens's books through characters, for example, Great Expectations

involves crime, class, London and bad family life, Charles experienced

all of these things as a child. Also as a child Dickens's experienced

both classes - rich and poor, as Pip does in Great Expectations.

When Charles was 12 years old he was sent to work in a blacking

factory in Hungerford market to try and help out his family who were

in a lot of financial trouble. He used to dream about becoming a

gentleman just like Pip does. From 1824-1827 Charles studied at

Wellington House Academy and then from 1827-1828 he was a law office

clerk. Then he went on to become a short hand reporter at Doctors

Commons. In the 1830's Dickens contributed to Monthly Magazine and the

evening chronicle and edited Bentley's Miscellany. These jobs gave him

a taste for writing and in 1833 he started to write short stories, he

had a very sharp ear for conversation, which helped him to create

colourful and imaginative...

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maintain suspense in a very good way, he does it by using a few

'tricks' that have big effects on the readers. He uses punctuation in

a very good way so that you can feel the characters thoughts. Also

because the book is written in the first person narrative it means we

really understand Pip and are able to see how he is feeling. Dickens

uses very good adjectives to describe emotions and objects and because

of this it adds to the suspense. I think that the part in the chapter

that was the most tense is when Pip is talking to the man before he

sees him because Dickens makes the readers wait before we find out

anything about the man and says that's it's 'a voice' talking. Dickens

manages to maintain suspense by slowly dragging the story out instead

of just saying exactly why Magwich has come to see Pip instead he

makes the readers wait and guess first.