Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Style
- Dickens has a distinctive style
- creates
characters/situations
that closely resemble
reality with naturalistic
style
- comments on real life
whilst exaggerating
characters/situations
for comedic/tragic
effect
- Narrative
- 1st person viewpoint - all perceptions
and judgements presented from Pip's
POV and his version of the 'truth' is
just one of many possible versions
- Pip's tone reflects Dickens' ironic, mocking
and often cynical voice, a predominant
characteristic of his style. Dicken often uses
a judgemental narrator who can't resist the
urge to lampoon his own creations for comic
effect and can even treat the most admirable
characters is an undignified manner
- Irony (higher form of wit
when literal meaning
contrasts writer's
meaning) regularly used.
- 'a quickness of eye and hand, very exacted by
wicket keeping' Joe's skilfulness of returning
hat to head appears to be praised but
ironically, Pip is pointing out how awkward
and clumsy he is that he can't even keep a
hat on his head!
- Authorial Instrusion - Pip/narrator
acknowledges mismatch between a
character's moral goodness & the
ruthless way Dickens has ridiculed
them for comic effect.
- Pip makes fun of J's
manners/speech/clothing during first
London visit - disparity between
disrespectful presentation and high moral
value Pip wants to place on J, which D tries
to reduce
- 'Utterly preposterous as
his cravat was, and as his
collars were, I was
concious of a sort of
dignity in the look.'
- Disrespect symptomatic of his
immatruity at this ateg?
However mature Pip realises J's
awkwardness 'was all my fault'
- Tone heard through every D novel,
perhaps an essential part of D's
style instead a specific quality
belongig to Pip as a narrator
- Matthew Pocket generally
accknowleged as of high moral
worth yet is presented as comically
disorganised and becomes a classic
stock comic character
- 'he really is disinterested, and above small
jealousy and spite' After being lampooned,
Pip restores semblance of dignity by saying
'nor, did I ever regard him as having anything
ludicrous about him...but what was serious,
honest, and good'
- more serious characters have
their speech and behaviour
devoid to the comic eccentrities. -
e.g. Orlick
- Self-ridiculing
- bitingly ironic tone conveys satire in showing how
pompous and ridiculous Pip has become as a result
of his new-found status as a gentleman
- Chp 30 - Trabb'sboy can see ludicrous nature
of Pip's snobbish behavious despite low social
status and contrasts with Trabb who takes Pip
seriously because of money and rank.
- Romantic narrative voice could be
regarded as Pip's authentic voice
when it no longer embodies D's
typical mocking tone.
- Chp 44: Pip recounts horror/dismay in a romantic
tone when he learns of E's marriage Chp 45:Comic
narrative voice returns w/sudden vengeance as he
lampoons furniture and presents other aspects of
room of rundown hotel in an amusing and ironic way,
'despostic monster of a four-post bedstead in it...'
- Slapstick humour
- D turns what would be horrific in reality into
amusement for reader through use of caricature -
like Tom & Jerry, or Punch & Judy
- Chp 2: Mrs J to J 'knocked his head...against wall behind him'
P&J dosed with tar-water, Pip lashed w/Tickler and hurled as
'connubial missile' at hapless J
- Other comic techniques
- incongruity (inappropriate)
- Chp 4: Adults spiteful towards Pip
during season of goodwill
(Christmas)
- Eccentric dialogue/behaviour/exaggeration
- Pumb. compares Pip to a pig to be
slaughtered - ludicrous image
- Puns
- Juxtaposition
- creates humour through inappropiateness of
connection of 2 unrelated things in close
proximity 'the Pumblechookian elbow in my
eye'
- Mrs J 'brought you up by hand' -
implies her touch is caring and
maternal but reader knows touch is
of frequent and unprovoked bouts
of violence
- Imagery
- D relies heavily on figurative language to create a particular
atmosphere or make a particular moral point. Also likes to
reveal characters through imagery, however some characters
characterised through their use. One of most powerful tools
used to communicate with reader and make is writing vivid.
- Mrs J associate w/painful objects e.g.
pins/needles/knife/nutmeg-grater
- Wemmicks mouth resembles a 'post office' to
suggest tightening of mouth into a narrow slit
once he has resumed city persona. Extended
metaphor of his home as a castle symbolises
how his home has allowed him to escape tense
city personality and become loving son of 'aged parent'
- Description of Pip's despair when he discovers his real patron is Mag not
Miss H - 'I began fully to know how wrecked I was...how the ship in which I
had sailed was gone to pieces'