Brillantly written, Charles Dickens's Great
Expectations is replete with literary
techniques:
1. parallelism -
Notice how the sentences in this paragraph from Chapter 1 are similar in
structure:
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A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great
iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied
round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by
stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and
shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me
by the chin.
2.
imagery In the above passage, there is also much sensory
language, or imagery. Imagery of crime and criminal justice pervade the novel. Miss
Havisham's house, for example, is like a prison as is Mr. Jaggers dark
office.
3. simile In Chapter
3, Pip describes his return to the Battery where he cannot keep his feet warm, comparing
the cold to the iron using as,
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...the damp cold seemed riveted as the iron was
riveted to the leg of the man I was running to
meet.
4.
metaphor In an unstated comparison, Pip calls Uncle Pumblechook "an
abject hypocrite," and "the basest of swindlers" (Ch.
13)
5.doppelgangers, or
doubles. Magwitch and Compeyson appear in the novel together several times. Magwitch is
of the streets; Compeyson, upper class. In Chapter 3 Pip
says
...this
man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and
hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man
was
Likewise, Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham are two women who are
seemingly tied to their houses, they treat Pip cruelly, and become
invalids.
6. fairy tale structure
Pip begins as a poor boy and is aided by an odd fair godmother who
seemingly elevates Pip to status of gentleman.
7.
Biblical allusions Pip is a prodigal son, who leaves home,
rejecting all that is connected to it. Once, however, he is financially ruined and
desolate, he returns home, begging forgiveness of his father-figure, Joe
Gargery
8. symbols The
leg-iron of the convict is alluded to several times, and it symbolizes Pip's feelings of
guilt. For instance, after his sister dies and Pip returns to the forge, the filed off
leg-iron of the old convict is found and suspected of being the murder weapon,
increasing Pip's feelings of guilt.
(Ch.16).
9. satire Chapters 22
and 23 contain descriptions of Mrs. Pocket, a silly woman who aspires to become an
aristocrat. She sits engrossed in a book about titles while her children dangerously
spill about her:
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whenever any of the children strayed near Mrs.
Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and tumbled over her—always very
much to her momentary astonishment, and their own more enduring lamentation..... until
by-and-bye Millers came down with the Baby, which baby was handed to Flopson, which
Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs.
Pocket, baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself.
(22)
10.
comic relief and comic irony The pompous Uncle Pumblechook
chokes giving his Christmas speech because Pip put tar water to replace the wine
(Ch.4). In Ch. 23 Dickens describes the Pockets with comic tones while commenting on
the pitiable state of Mr. Pocket:
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Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of
a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket
was the object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got
one.
