Form

Form

1. Seralised form

   • Great Expectations was (like most of Dickens' works) first published in serial form, in his periodical All the Year Round, shortly before the first book edition of 1861.
   • Results in character exaggeration and streotypical, one dimensional portrayl of characters so that they can be rembered from series to series by the reader
   • As results in the use of enigma so that the reader wants to read on from series to series with many side stories to sustain the readers attention for the prolonged yearly pearly period

2. Bildungsroman form

   • The novel deals with the protagnists initiation into life and the changes which affect his life and personality
   • The action of the novel takes place in the realistic world of England in the 19th century, and though some of the events of the novel rely heavily on coincidences (such as the fact that the convict Pip happens to meet as a child turns out to be Estella’s father), none of the events are completely unbelievable. Dickens relies on the real world to teach Pip what is important in life, and thus his writing style attempts to capture and adequately describe English life in the 19th century, making his writing style straightforward and direct.
   • Using the bildungsroman form Dickens’s writing is also humorous because he is describing a world that his readers would be familiar with and they would have experience with the scenes and people he was describing.
   • The protagonist gains insight through their experiences and are able to move from childhood to adulthood. Pip must come to understand that money and status are not worth sacrificing his relationship with his loved ones.
     • This emphasizes the theme that growing up involves the trading of one’s egotism and pride for humility and kindness.
   • Context
     • Because the Bildungsroman was just becoming popular in English literature in the years before the piece was published, it is likely that the Dicken's got some inspiration and ideas about how to craft his coming-of-age stories by this newly popular model.

3. Dual narrative perspective

   • Here, always the textual body reveals itself as an all-encompassing entity in which we find the protagonists' perspectives forever joined with authorial commentary.
   • Through this the Dicken's world is revealed as one of sentimental and cynical and above all realistic
   • Some changes within this perspective are due to changes throughout the novel
   • Most commonly the dual narrative is used in the early stages of the novel of the portray of a child's life as the naive outlook contributes attributes a playfulness to the author knowing of the tragic vision of adulthood; acting as comic irony
   • One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the meantime had twice endeavored to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were glad.
     • A certain hierarchy of power is comically inverted in the above passage and in general throughout chapter twenty-three. Here, the young Jane is described as “taking charge" of both her siblings and her parents, and earlier in the chapter Pip states: “Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in someone else's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants." This comment seems to act as a direct attack on the upper-classes. However, if it is Pip who is judging the Pockets or noting this class irony, then he does not seem to heed his own warnings or observations.
     • This scene, perhaps, fits right into Dickens overall commentary about superficiality or appearances in the novel, and how it is not necessarily the dress which makes the man, so to speak. Pip, if it is Pip here who is truly speaking, seems to notice this irony in this passage. Nevertheless, he once again fails to relate these realizations to himself.
   • They were brought in by Flopson and Millers much as though those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these: while Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been, as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what to make of them. "Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby," said Flopson. “Don't take it that way, or you'll get its head under the table."
   • The first person narrative provides a realist perspective upon happenings inherently gothic, melodramatic or non-realist in implication. Insofar as we are brought to share the boy Pip's viewpoint, we share his sense of the world as arbitrary and frightening; insofar as we are brought back from it by the adult narrator's viewpoint, we are invited to adopt a more ‘mature’ position, noting the plausibility of the child's and then the young man's experience the first person narrative provides a realist perspective upon happenings inherently gothic, melodramatic or non-realist in implication. Insofar as we are brought to share the boy Pip's viewpoint, we share his sense of the world as arbitrary and frightening; insofar as we are brought back from it by the adult narrator's viewpoint, we are invited to adopt a more ‘mature’ position, noting the plausibility of the child's and then the young man's experience
   • My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.