Creating Memorable Characters in Great Expectations Essay

How does Charles Dickens create characters that are both memorable and striking in the novel Great Expectations? In the novel ‘Great Expectations,’ Charles Dickens has managed to create several strong characters that are both memorable and striking and which definitely grab the reader’s attention. He uses a variety of techniques to make the characters seem so real. Take the character of Pip for example. His full name is Phillip Pirrip although he could never pronounce it properly and all he could manage was Pip, so that stuck with him. The audience instinctively pictures a small, cute, friendly boy. As the story is written from this small child’s point of view, you see the story through his own eyes. By doing this, certain†¦show more content†¦This shows that he is polite and doesn’t feel that he is higher or better than anyone else. For example, â€Å"Pray don’t do it, sir.† Along with â€Å"Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir.† At the start of the story, Pip is very comfortable with being poor and low class. He hasn’t really imagined being any different. It all changes when he goes to meet a rich woman called Miss. Havisham and a girl she raised called Estella. They are both higher classes than Pip and this is shown in the house they live in and the clothes they wear. Estella doesn’t like Pip and says that he is only a â€Å"common labouring boy.† Pip realises that some people are better than him and starts aspiring to become someone different. From that day onwards, he starts to have ‘Great Expectations.’ Another character in ‘Great Expectations’ that has been made unforgettable, is the tattered, escaped convict ‘Magwitch.’ In the beginning of the story, this strange person appears in the overgrown, eerie graveyard and threatens young Pip. As this scene is set in such a ghastly place, it helps make the character seem much more daunting and frightening than he normally is. 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