Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Connection to Beginning of Great Expectations to Dickens's life

During the 1850's was the time that Great Expectations was first published. During that time, Dickens lost both his father and a daughter within two weeks of each other. It is no surprise then that the novel should start out in a graveyard with an orphan by the name of Pip sitting on his parents' tombstone. Dickens was known to get deeply involved with his characters to the point where he would get on top of his furniture and shout the lines of a character in the character's voice. What really draws readers however is the fact that all of Dickens's characters talk with the colloquialisms of that social class and era so that anyone could connect to the story. Pip and the convict he encounters don't talk in the high and mighty imitations of a wealthy writer attempting to guess how the lower classes talked, but rather the true vernacular of the time because Dickens himself lead his childhood in extreme poverty.

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