Characters in Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens Essay -- Great Exp

Characters in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Dickens has many ways of making his characters both striking and memorable, he uses the dialogue and blends it with the setting and social background as illustrated by ‘torn by briars; who limped’. Dickens is very descriptive; this also helps making the character real. Dickens creates a creepy mood when we are told about the graveyard in which we meet Magwitch as shown by ‘as if he were eluding the hands of dead people’. He uses the graveyard and the gibbet in the distance to help create this mood which adds to the edgy atmosphere. The tone of this extract is dramatic and intimidating; Dickens achieves this by using short, but descriptive sentences. Dickens makes us feel sorry for Magwitch because of the way he speaks, ‘wittles’ and ‘pecoolier’ are examples of this. As Magwitch talks to Pip, we, as the reader notice that Magwitch talks to Pip as a child and uses language that would only scare a child : ‘you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!’. When pip meets Miss Havisham, Dickens makes it seem like it is a nice, rich room, however we soon find out it is a dull, lifeless room that hasn’t seen light in years : ‘. Dickens uses long, descriptive sentences here to introduce the setting and mood of the room. Dickens slowly gives us information bit by bit so we build a picture of what is going on. He slowly reveals that Miss Havisham has been jilted at the alter. Wemmick’s home reflects his personality in the way that he likes to be secure and safe. Wemmick is one of the most memorable of Dickens’s characters, as he is slightly out of the ordinary and has his own way of doing things. Wemmick keeps his work and his home life very separate, this is... ...rrible places to be; they carried lots of diseases and were extremely unhygienic. Miss Havisham is from an upper class background. She is very wealthy, however remains unmarried. Marriage for women in those days was more important than it is today because it used to be the men making all the money while the women looked after the house; however Miss Havisham has plenty of money so her problem is that she is lonely. Wemmick is in the working class and works in the prison as a clerk, the conditions of prisons in those days was very bad, which may be the reason why he keeps his home life and work life completely separate. Dickens achieves making his characters both striking and memorable by describing them in heavy detail, but not making it boring by having too much. In my opinion Wemmick is the most memorable character as I could imagine him being real.