The first thing that could be noted when comparing these two chapters is the length of each. Though this could be passed over, I think is shows how a small a difference the convict made to Pip in chapter 1 but the much bigger impact he made in chapter 39.
From the second paragraph in chapter 1, Dickens tries to get the reader’s sympathy to be directed towards Pip. He begins with the fact that he was an orphan so young he “never saw any likeness of either of them” then fades into the fact he “derived from the tombstones” what his parents looked like. I think within the feeling of sympathy, readers are able to relate to the character you feel it towards and makes them more likeable as a result.
The next thing you note about the chapter is the setting and the way Dickens uses pathetic fallacy in both chapters. In chapter 1 we are introduced to “the marsh country” and in chapter 39 we are in Pip’s house. Even the difference in Pip’s location shows the difference in Pip’s situation; in chapter 1 he was in a public place, something that can show lack of wealth, whereas in chapter 39 he was in a private residence, his own house.
In both chapters, we begin with the fact that he is alone. In chapter 39 it is specifically noted and repeated twice : “I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone.” This in the literal sense is Dickens way of creating tension and building up to the moment when the convict reveals himself.
I also think that in chapter 1 he is simply literally alone but by the time we reach chapter 39, he is alone figuratively as well. He has left his friends and family at the forge, abandoning them, thinking they were merely an embarrassment in his new life as a gentleman.
In chapter 1 the convict’s entrance to the scene is sudden ideologue cutting through a block of descriptive text. He comes “from among the