Pips Childhood in Charles Dickens Great Expectations Essay

Pips Childhood in Charles Dickens Great Expectations In the first five chapters of Charles Dickens Great Expectations, we follow the life of a young boy, Phillip Pirrip - Pip for short, in early nineteenth century England. A time when England was in industrial revolution and when the rapid growth of cities brought social divisions between class - rich and poor. The British government fearing a revolution, maintained a harsh regime. In Great Expectations, Dickens writes about this and conveys attitudes towards children, most especially Pip and the severity and turbulence of his childhood. Dickens is able to convey Pips youth and the nature of his childhood through the language, use of†¦show more content†¦Pip is unable to see his parents appearances due to the non existence of photography, he therefore imagines his father as a square, stout, dark man and his mother as freckled and sickly due to nothing more than the appearance of the letters inscribed upon their tombstones. An adult would not usually draw this kind of conclu sion from a tombstones lettering and so we begin to understand Pips immaturity. A very detailed description of the setting is given in which Dickens informs the reader that Pip is standing in the graveyard looking observing a Dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea, this all builds up to create the impression of a harsh forbidding setting and we discover that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip this all adds up to make us feel sorry for Pip and conveys the impression of a small, scared, lonely and insecure boy. Pip is then caught by surprise and has a chance encounter with an escaped convict, named Magwitch, who goes on to shape much of Pips life. Pips immaturity, irony and exaggeration is conveyed during this encounter. Pip seems to rigid with terror as the fearful man questions him and orders him about. The convict is able toShow MoreRelatedSocial Class Of The Victorian Era1282 Words   |  6 Pagesof the most important social reformers during the Victorian Era was Charles Dickens. Growing up in a poor, working class family, Dickens knew about the harsh realities that spawned from the social class system present. His writing reflects these experiences and attempts to expose this harsh system and other big problems prominent in Victorian society. Pip is a character that experiences some of these realities in Great Expectations. 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