Explore Dickens use of language to create setting and character in the Great Expectations. - page 1
Keywords: Dickens Great Expectations language setting character
By Jenny on 02/07/2009
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 3 pages: 1 2 3
English Coursework
Explore Dickens use of effective ‘language’ to create ‘setting’ and ‘character’ in the opening chapter of Great Expectations.
One of the main themes in this chapter is death and Dickens opens it early in the proceedings. In the second paragraph he mentions the tombstones of Pips parents,
“I gave Pirrip as my father’s family name on the authority of his tombstone”.
This informs us that Pip’s parents are deceased and since his only knowledge of even their name is from their gravestone he therefore must have experienced death at an early age. He goes on to describe the churchyard and the land surrounding it continuing the themes of death and general negativity.
Pip says that, “My most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening.”
The word vivid creates the impression that this afternoon stands out clearly in his memory and that it is in contrast to other things that have been forgotten and are less distinct in his mind. His use of the phrase “impression of” and the word “memorable” also show that it has been impressed into in his memory - obviously something of note happened. The afternoon is described as “raw”, a word the reader may associate with images and ideas such as: biting, bitter, bleak, breezy, chill, cold, freezing, piercing, sore, unpleasant, wet, wind-swept, and winter; all of which are have unpleasant connotations in the readers mind.
Pip is in a churchyard and Dickens goes on to describe it as “bleak” and “overgrown with nettles”. This negative language creates a barren and colourless setting and nettles in particular are seen as unfavourable objects. The subject of death arises again at the end of that sentence as it finishes with the words “dead and buried”.
Dickens then continues to describe the marshland outside the churchyard as dark and flat implying that it is featureless and dull with no landmarks, bringing back the themes of bleakness and negativity. He also utilises the classic sentence formation of a list of three objects in, “with dykes and mounds and gates” and “the low, leaden, line beyond” where he also makes effective use of alliteration. In addition he mentions “scattered cattle” implying that there is no order to this landscape, or even to the little “life” that exists there.
The brilliant phrase, “…the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was
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