Great Expectations: A Glimpse Into Victorian England

Great Expectations was a novel written by Charles Dickens in 1860. Dickens was born on February 7th 1812, in Hampshire. Charles was working for long hours in extremely bad conditions at the age of 12, experiences like have a huge influence on the way he writes his novels because they’re mostly about how the poor lived during Victorian Britain.

Great expectations was set in Victorian Britain in the early nineteenth century, where women were seen more as objects or property than a human, where people where divided into social classes, e.g. you were either respectful, rich and led a luxurious life or were poor and inferior.

In the novel, Pip is the main character of the story which begins when he’s under the age of ten, his parents died and therefore lives with his cruel sister and her husband, the local blacksmith. While visiting the grave on day, he meets an escaped convict and gives him food.

Settings play an important role in great expectations, the settings have the power to show who a character is because they reflect on the character’s personality and circumstance, There are also settings that most readers might not be able to see which change the characters personalities unless it is reflected on them. Sates house and the graveyard both match the characters’ moods andhelp to make them memorable.

In ‘Great Expectations, Charles Dickens manages to create some very strong characters who are memorable and impressive. He uses different techniques to bring specific characters to life e.g. Pip, Magwich, Ms Havisham and Estella; Dickens’ use of various techniques help him to catch the readers’ attention.

His full name is Phillip Parrip, he was never able to pronounce his name properly and all he could say

was Pip, so th...

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...la has become and says she didn’t mean to steal “her heart away and put ice in its place”, this shows that she really did care about Estella; her only intension was to protect her from the same heartbreak she went through and even felt she deserved to die.

Pip’s love for Estella grows even though she constantly puts him down, “you must know that I have no heart”, Pip feels hurt by the fact that she believes she has no emotions, however, she tells Pip that the reason she keeps putting him down is because she doesn’t want to “deceive and entrap” him, this suggests that although the readers see her as a hurtful person, she can show she cares for people is she wanted to, like she did Pip by avoiding him. Estella is a memorable character because she so beautiful on the outside and so cold and arrogant inside but she simply can’t be blamed for it as it is not her fault.