The convict Able Magwitch Essay Example for Free

The convict Able Magwitch Essay Great Expectations is a novel written by Charles Dickens during the Victorian period, around 1860-61. Dickins today is regarded to be one of the greatest novelists of all time. Great Expectations portrays the predominate themes of a Dickins novel as its central ideas revolve around the division of rich and poor, and how their status is viewed by the society in which they live. The novel Great Expectations is based upon the life of a young orphaned boy named Pip, whom is brought up by his older sister Mrs Joe Gargery and Mr Joe Gargery his brother in law living in Kent. Pip faced with various different incidents, as well as changes that take place in his life, which then structure his future self, as he grows into a man. Such events include him meeting Magwitch, Miss Havisham, and Estella, all of which have diverse effects on him. Pip is the protagonist and narrator of the novel and is reflecting on his past, explaining his story of his younger self. Pip is passionate, romantic, and somewhat unrealistic at heart, as he tends to expect more for himself than is possible, as he has a powerful conscience, and he deeply wants to improve himself, both morally and socially. He grows up to be a rich arrogant gentleman, influenced by Miss Havisham and his love for Estella. Despite his new lifestyle, he is later reminded in the novel, of his former self. This transformation in Pip, from poor to rich clearly reflects the distinct division and contrast in class throughout the Victorian era. Miss Havisham is a wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pips village. She is manic and often seems insane, wonders around her house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table. As a young lady, Miss Havisham was jilted by her fianc minutes before her wedding, and now she has a vendetta against all men. She deliberately raises Estella to be the tool of her revenge, training her beautiful ward to break mens hearts. Miss Havishams beautiful young ward, Estella is Pips unattainable dream throughout the novel. He loves her passionately, but though she sometimes seems to consider him a friend, she is usually cold, cruel, and uninterested in him. As they grow up together she repeatedly warns him that she has no heart. Pip also later discovers that Estella is Magwitchs daughter. One of the main themes of this story is wealth. In Victorian times money meant everything and it was what gave people their status in society. Ones individual wealth was reflected by their job and sense of dress, placing them into a society in which they were approved of. Money was a measure of giving a person everything they wanted, from luxuries, to happiness or even to a persons heart. Great Expectations on the other hand proves to illustrate an exact parody of the fact stated above. This is largely due to Pip going though much misfortune, suffering and tragedy as a gentleman, yet the novel points out that no amount of wealth buys you true love or friends, just grief and agony. In chapter one, the first meeting between Magwitch and Pip is set in a bleak place over grown with nettles in a churchyard which was intersected with dykes and mounds and gates that have scattered cattle feeding on it down at the marshes in Kent. The weather, in addition to the surroundings, is as follows; wind was rushing and the distant savage lair was the sea. This makes everything sound very quiet, eerie, and isolated. Also the use of the metaphor describing the sea distant savage lair emphasises how it seems so sister and dangerous. The use if this also creates an image in the readers mind of a dark, almost ghostly sea, making the setting so far very unsettling to the reader. This suggests that the meeting between the two characters may not be a friendly sort; rather it indicates its going to be more of a grim and disturbing type sensing that theres trouble brewing. The weather helps sets the scene and brings it all together, by making the reader anxious and curious about whats going to happen next, through using language such as savage and dark flat wilderness. These words are very negative and unpleasant; hence it brings up curiosity as to why its like that. Overall the setting of the first meeting is very pessimistic and sinister. This makes the setting seem very unappealing, causing the reader build up interest as to why the setting is such and also comes to understand that somethings about to happen, therefore whatever it is, it wont be something good when taking into account and reflecting back at the overall setting, including the weather. This use of subtle contrast from Dickins is in my view very clever as it stands almost as a metaphor for the context of the novel. In the Victorian era the amount of money possessed by each individual was a measure of your popularity and status. Despite this it did not always bring you happiness and contentment. The use of dismal and moody atmospheric description clearly symbolises how not everything is what it seems, as Pip and Magwitch, are not in the end foes as it seems they are going to be in the initial stages of the novel, but instead friends, with respect and understanding for each other. Many years later, the second meeting takes place at Pips home down in Garden-court, in London. Once again, the weather coincidently repeats itself just like chapter ones setting of the first meeting, wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy, and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets is described as a vast heavy veil which has been around for quite a while. We could suspect that each time Magwitch and Pip are about to meet, the weather acts as an indication of trouble brewing before the meeting has commenced. This is because the weather alters by deteriorating to damp, murky, and stormy, setting the mood or emotion of the meeting that is to take place. All in all, Charles Dickens has created the setting to be very disturbing and eerie, simply by using a savage array of negative words like wretched and savage, causing the setting to appear in a negative light. This makes the reader concerned and question what is to happen next in the meeting between Pip and Magwitch, for the second time. The very first meeting with Pip and Magwitch shows just how different and unique the two characters are when compared to one and other. The story is told by Pip as a grown man, explaining and looking back at his past using his infant tongue to tell the story. However, in the second meeting Pip is no longer a boy, but a mature man who is three-and-twenty years of age whom is narrator and protagonist of the novel, Great Expectations.