Great Expectations and the Corruption of Innocence. - page 1
Keywords: Charles, Dickens, Corruption, Innocence,
By Richard on 30/09/2008
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
In the first chapter of ‘Great Expectations’ we are introduced to Pip. He is introduced in the wilderness of his young life. He is young and innocent and he is giving us an introduction to himself. He writes as though he is looking back on his life. He is matter of fact and simple to understand. Many parts are quite funny but also he shows that he has lost his parents, and we sympathise with Pip especially as his writing is as a young child. It is funny when Pip makes mistakes such as when Pip calls his mother ‘Georgiana wife of the above’ this naivety warms us to Pip and the reader would begin to like him. His childish description of his family is almost cute. The reader finds Pip an attractive character and a likeable kind. It also now that Dickens writes of the struggle he survived to stay alive, this links to the struggle he is going to endure later in his life.
The presence of wilderness and Pips smallness and vulnerability is strong in the first chapter. The alliteration in the third paragraph is very dull, and dreary. One part reads ‘low leaden line’ which is dull and gives the effect of a grey vast windy marshland. Describing the source of the wind as a ‘distant savage lair’ shows how unforgiving and uncomfortable the scenery is. Also how large and vast it is compared to Pip, in the line ‘the small bundle of shivers’ we are yet again shown how small and fragile Pip is compared to his surroundings. The rhythm of this sentence is very monotonous and dull; it is just how we are meant to see the landscape. The list gives the effect of an endless skyline of dull grey clouds. Compared to Pip this world is a thousand times bigger. It shows how insignificant he is and also the way his aunt sister talks him, she snaps and beats him, this also makes out at how vulnerable he is, he cannot even defend himself from his own sister. Being “more than twenty years older” than him, she is not only physically stronger, larger than him but she is also mentally stronger than him and with the beatings he receives from her she can keep her position of power over him. Many other characters are used to make Pip small and helpless, the most fearful is
Last 5 comments…
Brilliant...it got me an A
4stuchfi (1-Oct-2008)