Convict Turns Pip example essay topic

At the beginning of a novel a reader needs to find out where and who the main character is and what they are doing there. You would expect to find description of their surroundings and then what is going to happen in the story. "Great expectations" does all of these in the first two chapters it firstly tells you Who the main character is and then it goes on to explain were pip is by describing his father's tombstone, "I gave Pir rip as my fathers name on authority of his tombstone". Next it goes on to say how he lives with his sister who has married a blacksmith "Mrs Joe Garg ery, who married the blacksmith", his sister is not known as her name but by her husbands. He next describes what he thinks his farther looked like by his tombstone, "The shape of the letters on my fathers tombstone, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair". He also describes his mother, "Also Georgia wife of the above, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly".

He also mentions his five brothers who had died early in their lives. Then it describes where the graveyard is and where pips house is "Ours is the marsh country, down by the river". He starts the story with a convict threatening him, instantly grabbing the attention of the reader. "Hold your noise, cried a terrible voice". He goes on from this to describe what the convict looks like, "a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg". He says how he looks very worn and tattered, "smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars, who limped, and shivered".

He sees the convict is hungry, the convict turns Pip upside-down to empty his pockets, he finds some bread and eats it but he is still hungry and he still has a chain on his leg after escaping the hulks. So he tells pip to go home and to find him some more food and a file. "You get me a file, and you get me wattles, you bring em both to me, or ill have your heart and liver out". The convict also mentions another more violent convict that has escaped with him".

There is a young man hid with me, in comparison with which I am an angel". In chapter two we see that Pip was brought up by his sister with violence. "She established a reputation with herself and the neighbours, because she had brought me up 'by hand'". He goes on to describe Joe Gar gary, "Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have some how got mixed with their own whites". He describes Joe as "a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness".

Meaning he was strong but good natured. Joe warns Pip that Mrs Joe has went looking for him with tickler (a cane), "Mrs Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you Pip, and she's out now making it a bakers dozen, and what is worse, she's got tickler with her". Pip hid behind the door hoping not to be found but Mrs Joe found him and 'tickled' him. At tea Pip tries to sneak some bread and butter out down his trouser leg for the convict. "I knew Mrs Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe". But Joe thinks Pip has eaten his bread very fast, "I say you know!

Muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. Pip old chap you " ll do yourself a mischief, it " ll stick somewhere, you cant have chewed it pip". For eating the bread fast Mrs Joe gave Pip tar water. Soon a gun was fired "Ah's aid Joe 'there's another convict off". When Pip goes up to bed he thinks about the convict and his friend out in the cold. He also thinks he will end up in the hulks for stealing the file and the food. "if I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong spring tide, to the hulks".

When Pip went down the stairs he imagined the floor boards calling after him and trying to wake up Mrs Joe. "Every crack in every board, calling after me, 'stop thief!' and 'get up Mrs Joe'". Pip finds a large savoury pork pie, some bread, rind of cheese, half a jar of mincemeat, a meat bone and a bottle of brandy, and finally gets a file and leaves the house. Much later in the story the convict returns and pays to make Pip a gentleman, but he does not tell Pip it was him until later, and so Pip thinks Miss Hav isham has paid for him to become a gentleman to go to London and marry her daughter Estella because they played as children.

I think this is a good start to a novel because it grabs the readers attention by putting it in the first person so it seems like the story has happened and makes the reader feel sorry for Pip. It also uses action to get the readers attention with the convict threatening pip and then turning him upside-down to empty his pockets. He uses comical language but he is also being serious an example of this is "She almost always wore a coarse apron, why is she did it at all she should not have taken it off, everyday of her life.