Great Expectations

?

A novel

- bringing about change --> justice & punishment, characters on both sides of law

- loneliness --> image of graves

- Gothic --> 'gibbet', 'row of long angry, red lines'

- kindness --> "I am glad you enjoyed it"

- Mrs Joe --> exaggerated view of role played in upbringing 'It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife without being your mother', apron: 'impregnable' with 'pins and needles' symbolise cold, sharp manner

- first person narrative

- absurd way Pip jumps at every sound: 'I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a sheep bell', contrast between file & sheep bell creates humour

- Joe --> Pip begins to learn to read reminds Joe of own troubed childhood, tolerant of wife 'your sister is a fine figure of a woman', does not want to find himself behaving like own father, does not condemn father for years of brutality, insists man had good 'hart', Dickens presenting Joe as tolerant & forgiving, Pip admires Joe, could be argued this experience plays part in Pip's later forgiveness for mistreatment by Miss Havisham & Mrs Joe

- relationship between Pip & Miss Havisham complex & ambiguous

- Miss Havisham motivated by misery & humiliation

- Estella instrument of revenge

- Pip feels ignorant & resents simple upbringing

- Dickens deliberately vague about Miss Havisham's past typical of writing style, secrets & mysteries

Pip --> elaborate story about visit

two pounds, large amount

B mysterious stranger acquaintance of Magwitch Dicken's way of developing different plots that take reader through novel

C power of money to change Pip's behaviour is common theme

- Satis House --> physical representation of Miss Havisham's devestated mind & reminder of how greed & selfishness can ruin lives

- Pip shows affinity to strangers

- Miss Havisham --> 'feast

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