Discuss the effectiveness of the opening chapter of ‘Great Expectations’ Essay

Charles Dickens was a very famous writer who was born 7th February 1812. One of most famous books is ‘Great Expectations’ which was serialised in 1860. ‘Great Expectations’ is about a young infant boy called Pip (Philip Pirrip) whose mother, father and five little brothers are all departed. His sister Mrs Joe Gargery and her husband Mr Joe Gargery, a blacksmith, then looked after Pip. The novel ‘Great Expectations’ begins very swiftly and promptly, as the start of the novel sees Pip visiting his deceased family. I think this is very effective in a story like this because straight away Dickens wants to show Pip’s isolation and fear, as he stands alone before his families’ gravestones at the start of the novel and how he explains that his sister ‘brought him up by hand’, this means that his sister would beat him if he did something wrong. This was not uncommon at the time when this novel was written because in the 19th Century, orphans and convicted criminals, like Pip and Magwich, were very badly treated and physically abused; the treatment that these unfortunate people suffered was inhumane. Dickens knew that this was not right so one of the main reasons why Dickens wrote this novel was to inform and notify the audience about the mistreating of orphans and convicts. He tried to change society by writing other novels as well based on the same principal such as Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickelby. In the story I think Dickens describes the environmental scenery very effectively as he describes Magwich in the same way. Also the bleak environment works well together with the isolation and fear of Pip while alone in the graveyard. There is a good comparison between the description of the environment and with the description of Magwich as they are both described as bleak, grim and frightening. The environment is described as † Bleak, desolate place overgrown with nettles, and the dark, flat wilderness beyond the churchyard† and the convict is describes as † A fearful man, all in coarse grey†. I think Dickens has purposely done this to make the opening chapter more effective to the audience and more alarming to Pip. However even thought Magwich is describes as frightening and horrendous, the way Dickens describes him and the language that he uses, make us feel quite sympathetic towards Magwich, † torn by briars, stung by nettles, soaked in water, smothered in mud etc†, this quotation from the novel makes us feel sorry for the unfortunate convict. Dickens’s storyline and words also makes us feel sorry for young Pip as in the past he has lost his Mother, Father and five younger Brothers and the fright of being ‘held hostage’ by Magwich. In addition to Magwich’s fright Dickens also produces some humour from the things Magwich says. For example when Magwich requests that Pip go and fetch him a file and some wittles, however if Pip does not fulfil Magwich’s requests then a young man will cut out his heart and liver, this make the novel more enjoyable for the audience. † You fail and your heart and liver shall be torn out†. Dickens’s effective use of language and words presents us with an understanding of Pip’s fear and isolation throughout the novel. As stated before Dickens uses high-quality description of his characters, this makes them stand out from the rest and become more vivid. I think this is because as Dickens was growing up his father was always in debt and in and out of prison, so Dickens was sent to work at the young age of 12 and Dickens stated ‘They were the most terrible times of my life’. From this I have come to the conclusion that Dickens created Pip from his own experience in life and because Dickens actually lived like Pip, it makes him sound more realistic and believable for the audience. Dickens lived like Pip and experienced the brutal treatment for himself. The novel ‘Great Expectations’ is actually being told by Pip himself, but not as a child, as an adult looking back at when he was younger. This is very effective and is successful language by Dickens, as it gives us an adult opinion and perspective of a child’s life. We know that the narrator is a mature one, because he talks about his childish conclusions of his family by looking at the inscriptions on their gravestones and how his ‘infantile tongue’ could only make out the name Pip from his full name. â€Å"From the inscriptions, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly†. In the 19th Century children were horrendously mistreated as they were sent to work in dirty, odious factories from the age of 10. At the time orphanages did not exist so orphans were hired by people for odd jobs, who paid them just enough to survive. Convicted criminals were also very neglected at this time. Dickens picked up on this and decided that society needed to change, so Dickens wrote this novel, not only to earn a living and entertain but also to inform and notify the audience about the mistreating of orphans and convicts. He also tried to change society by writing other novels based on the same principal such as Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickelby. Here we encounter a similarity between chapters one and eight, because in chapter eight Pip goes on regular visits to see Miss Havisham who is very rich and cultured. Nonetheless as Pip gets to know Miss Havisham he realises that she is not the person that he expected because when we get to know Miss Havisham we realise that she is quite sadistic and cruel, as she wants to avenge men for her past adversity. Miss Havisham is very rich and cultured so she should know better than to be sadistic and heartless towards Pip. This relates to the opening chapter because in it Pip encounters Magwich the old, ill-fated convict who seems fearsome at the time of the meeting. However as he gets to know Magwich, he realises that Magwich is quite kind and gentle. This is in contrasts with chapter eight because Miss Havisham seems nice but he realises she is cruel and in chapter one Magwich seems fearful but is really kind. Chapters one and eight relate to each other quite well because both Miss Havisham and Magwich are not what they seem to Pip and first glance, this is an example of the old saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. It is because of Dickens’s excellent choice of words and language that these two chapters relate so well together, and this is something that Dickens does throughout the novel. It is also because of Dickens’s choice of words why his main character is called Pip; because the word Pip means a seed from which things grow. This is true of the text because Pip does grow throughout the novel from a young orphan to a rich gentlemen, so the name Pip is a very interesting name for this novel. The social and historical setting in this novel is in similarity with the real life environment at the time as in the novel Magwich the convict has been very badly treated and is very adverse, this also happened in the environment at the time that this novel was wrote. Also the brutal abuse of Pip the orphan is similar to the exploitation of the orphans in the surrounding atmosphere. By reading this novel we can get a rough idea of the physical abuse that the orphans and convicts suffered at the time, I think this is very useful because it would have been a very good real-life novel. On a whole I think that chapter one of ‘Great Expectations’ is very effective by the choice of language and words used by the famous, experienced writer Charles Dickens. However if we look at chapter one in relation to chapter two I think that chapter one and chapter two go together to make a unit, Nevertheless chapter one is still very successful.