Review of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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Recommended: Analysis of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Review of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, the reader is quickly

attracted to the book by the author's use of very vivid and emotional

details. Dickens' structure and language allow the reader to

experience life-like situations from this novel. Realistic, bold

characters and an up-tempo plot keep the reader interested. Dickens

uses different themes to allow the reader to compare this novel to

their own lives. He allows them to add their own feelings while deeply

portraying the feelings that he would have felt while reading this.

Dickens' details in Great Expectations do not leave much to the

reader's imagination. He creates large, vibrant pictures of the towns

and scenery; the most elaborate setting one could possibly think of.

"…the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with

dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on them, was

the marshes…"(Dickens 4). To some readers, this lack of having to use

the imagination on the setting is disappointing. The fine details are

the only ones that can be left up to the reader's imagination because

Dickens truly set up a brilliant story with a credible setting.

While having a heavily detailed setting, Great Expectations has very

vivid and lively characters that are placed in a somewhat, hard to

believe plot. Each character is very different from all of the others.

This prevents any confusion of who's who. Every character represents

someone that the reader probably knows in real life. Some readers may

even see themselves in one of the characters-hopefully not Miss

Havisham! Either way, Dickens' lifelike characters give the story life

and a way for the reader to truly interact with this novel.

The themes are also another way for the reader to interact with Great

Expectations. The many different themes create different feelings in

the reader to experience whilst reading. The themes that Dickens used

for symbolism and reference to his own life and thoughts are money,

justice, and class snobbery. Dickens was raised in lower-class

society, so he knows how the other classes treat others and how others

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