How does Dickens make the reader feel sympathy for Pip in extracts from 'Great Expectations'?
The extracts I will be analysing are from the novel Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens. I am going to be describing how Dickens has succeeded in making the reader feel sorry for Pip. Dickens used his own experiences as a boy to help him write sympathetically of being a young child, his family had no money and got transferred from city to city until he was ten years old, his father was also sent to prison for six months over debt. He based the character Pip in remembrance of himself as a child, writing about his own thoughts and feelings to help himself create more sympathy for Pip.
Pips given name was Philip Pirrip, as he was so young he couldnt pronounce his complicated name correctly, so he shortened it and named himself Pip. Pip was very imaginative as a young boy, he lived nearby to a graveyard and there wasnt many other people about, so Pip was alone and lonely a lot because he couldnt make friends with anyone.
During the first extract we get to see that Pip is an orphan after he says: As I never saw my father or my mother.. (for their days were long before the days of photographs), we recognise that he unfortunately lost both his mother and father along with five brothers he once had, who passed away whilst they were still infants. The only family Pip had, was his older sister Mrs Joe Gargery and her husband who was a Blacksmith. He had lived with them both for most of his life, his sister treats him dreadfully as all she sees Pip as is a waste of space in her household. Whilst her husband - Joe Gargery, treats Pip like he was his own flesh and blood. We now get the chance to begin to see the hard and upsetting life Pip leads and what he has gone through in the past. We start to feel sympathy for Pip, as not many children would have to go through the same experience as he once did.
Where he lived was neither such a nice place to be around, nor one of the friendliest places to live either. Pip describes the village he lived in as a marsh country
Pips given name was Philip Pirrip, as he was so young he couldnt pronounce his complicated name correctly, so he shortened it and named himself Pip. Pip was very imaginative as a young boy, he lived nearby to a graveyard and there wasnt many other people about, so Pip was alone and lonely a lot because he couldnt make friends with anyone.
During the first extract we get to see that Pip is an orphan after he says: As I never saw my father or my mother.. (for their days were long before the days of photographs), we recognise that he unfortunately lost both his mother and father along with five brothers he once had, who passed away whilst they were still infants. The only family Pip had, was his older sister Mrs Joe Gargery and her husband who was a Blacksmith. He had lived with them both for most of his life, his sister treats him dreadfully as all she sees Pip as is a waste of space in her household. Whilst her husband - Joe Gargery, treats Pip like he was his own flesh and blood. We now get the chance to begin to see the hard and upsetting life Pip leads and what he has gone through in the past. We start to feel sympathy for Pip, as not many children would have to go through the same experience as he once did.
Where he lived was neither such a nice place to be around, nor one of the friendliest places to live either. Pip describes the village he lived in as a marsh country