Dickens Life Expressed Through Pip in Great Expectations...

Great Expectations was a novel written by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form from 1st December 1860 and then further on was released in book form in August 1861, although was previously issued by David Copperfield in 1849. This novel reworks his own childhood as a first-person narrative; Dickens was fortunate and had an advantage of writing Great Expectations due to him living in the Victorian times, and he related his life experiences with the main character of the play, ‘Pip’. Charles opened the play with the character Pip; his name was short for his Christian name Philip. In the Victorian times there were 3 different classes, these were known as the upper class, middle class and lower class. Pip belonged to the†¦show more content†¦So therefore Pip did not receive an education. One of the things Charles Dickens tended to do in his career of writing was that he used interesting names characters in the story. As explained earlier the main character in the play is Pip, the reason he chose this name was because it symbolises a lot of different thoughts. If you think of a pip, the first impression that comes to mind is a seed, and a seed is a very small and fragile object and needs a lot of care to come into life and grow into a healthy plant. This describes exactly what a young child needs to grow and have a healthy life, just like Pip in the story. Furthermore in the story Pip is described as a ‘’small bundle of shivers’’, this shows that he has built up emotions of his memories in that past, suggesting that he didn’t have a very good childhood. The word small creates an impression that he was left behind and didn’t get much love or care in his childhood. The setting is in a graveyard, as it mentions in the story ‘’bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard’’. This negative language creates a barren and colourless setting and nettles in particular are seen as unfavourable objects. ‘’overgrown with nettles’’ states that it was deceived and not looked after. In addition ‘’the dark flat wilderness’’ is used to describe the marshes part of the setting, this shows that it is dark there and it states that there is nobodyShow MoreRelatedSocial Class Of The Victorian Era1282 Words   |  6 Pagesduring the Victorian Era was Charles Dickens. Growing up in a poor, working class family, Dickens knew about the harsh realities that spawned from the social class system present. His writing reflects these experiences and attempts to expose this harsh system and other big problems prominent in Victorian society. Pip is a character that experiences some of t hese realities in Great Expectations. 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