Great Expectations

7 Pages 1685 Words

Is chapter one of Great Expectations an effective
beginning to the novel?

Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations under a large amount of pressure, but this did not diminish the quality of his novel. In the nineteenth century novels of this kind were published in weekly instalments in magazines. The first instalment was published before Dickens had even questioned the rest of the storyline. To go with the pressure of writing these instalments in such short spaces of time, Dickens had to make each one uniquely exciting and unpredictable so the reader would buy the magazine week after to week to find out what happens in the novel. Dickens managed to capture the reader each week by using, suspense, humour and mystery throughout the novel. Dickens used these devices a great deal in the first chapter of Great Expectations to encourage people to buy the magazine, All the Year Round, each week. Dickens succeeds in composing an effective beginning to the novel because of the setting he chooses, the characters, the language as well as his use of narrative style in the chapter. We eventually find out that this powerful beginning is the source of all conclusions, which are reached towards the end of this dramatic novel.

The setting Charles Dickens chooses to use in Chapter one of Great Expectations is a very effective and important part of the beginning of the novel. The setting is not only used to help us imagine the place Dickens is writing about but it also helps to emphasise the way Pip, the main character, is feeling. The setting emphasises Pip’s isolation and vulnerability as he stands in the graveyard among the bodies of the dead. Pip stands in the “marsh country” on the “dark wilderness” beyond the churchyard. Pip is very much alone at the beginning of this chapter and Dickens uses John Ruskin’s idea of pathetic fallacy to express this. The “green mounds” and “nettles” all portray the hostility of everything a...