How did Charles Dickens create sympathy for Pip in the opening chapter of great expectation?
In this essay I’m going to be writing about a Charles Dickens book called ‘Great Expectations’ and how he successfully makes the reader feel sorry for the main character in the book named Pip; a young orphan, alone in a graveyard and how bad his life is or how bad its going to get.
Dickens makes the reader feel sorry for Pip because we find out that, apart from his sister all his family is dead. Pip tells us as “I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of them...” Pip is shown in a very sad light and the reader wonders why Pip is so alone. We also learn that he had five little brothers now all he has is their gravestones. This is shocking, even through we have known that, at that time deaths were common because they didn’t have any medical resources or any cures in those days. In Charles Dickens times childhood deaths were very common in those days because of poor diets, bad medical care and poor housing which only the rich people could afford I can show this by...” five little brothers of mine – who gave up trying to get a , exceedingly early in that universal struggle...”
Dickens makes it clear that Pip is very young because on paragraph two on chapter one Pip looks at his mothers and father’s gravestone and tries to imagine what they look like by the lettering on the gravestone by the writing on the tombstone, I can show this by... “I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly”. This shows that Pip is a little boy who is trying to imagine what his mother and father looks like. This gives the reader more sympathy and sorrow for pip because he has no family except from his sister but Pip has to grow up with no brothers to play with and no parents to be there for him when he’s upset or to see him grow up.
In the book the characters name is Pip this suggests that he is small,