Compare and Contrast Pips Life on the Marshes to his Life in London

This essay is based around Pips life on the marshes, his move from the marshes to London and his life in London. The marshes is a contrast, which shows Pips morale decline in life. During his move and during the course of the novel Pip becomes a very nasty person and his personality dramatically changes. In this essay I will attempt to show this and relate to why it is happening.

At the beginning of novel Pip lives on the marshes and is a very pleasant little boy. He seems content and even happy with his position on the marshes and enjoys himself playing there. However an incident occurs very early on in the book, which shakes Pip up. After telling the reader about his dead family and their tombstones “The shape on my fathers gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair.” This shows gloominess and represent the environment in the marshes as Dickens gives off the impression that the marshes is a very “bleak place overgrown with nettles” this quote shows Pip as a man narrating on his life as a child which is how the whole book is written. The language used is very mature but a very good description and easily gives me an impression of the environment in the marshes.

This is strengthened later on in the paragraph as Dickens says “dark flat wilderness” and “intersected with dykes and mounds and gates” This is a written well as Dickens gives us a description of the environment straight away, we haven’t even finished the first page and already we have a very good idea of what the marshes looks like. This “dark” impression of the environment is representing Pip in himself a very gloomy child who isn’t happy with his life as soon he gets home he will be facing his sister of whom he has a terrible relationship with. His sister looked after him after his parents left and she is constantly reminding him of how much he owes her as she brought him up “by hand” and had “never had this apron off”. I think that Pip understands this but him and Joe try to help out and they have life hard. Joe is “Mrs Joes” – Pips sisters husband, he is the blacksmith and he is in Pips eyes “a fair man with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face.” Pip is very in awe of Joe although he is already more intelligent and just better than Joe.

Although Pip dislikes his sister and really loves Joe I think that he still loves his family and his life on the marshes. His initial reaction to his family is that he loves them despite his sister’s callous attitude towards him. At this stage he has no comparison to his life on the marshes and so he has grown to accept it. It will be interesting later on, when he has experienced other ways of living and has met a lot of other people, to compare how he then reacts to his family and how he reacts now.

Joe is a very kind person “mild, good natured, sweet tempered, easy going” this are quotes that Pip used to describe Joe showing that he looks up to him and obviously sees him not only as a father figure but as a friend also. The words that Pip uses are very caring and gentle and shows his compassion for Joe, Pip shows us here that he cares about Joe and the phrase “easy going” suggests to me that Pip and Joe are able to get on and have a joke with each other. However that could also be viewed as Pip saying that Joe is easy to kid and get the better of, I don’t believe this is correct but then his next words are “foolish” this would back up my point saying that Joe is unintelligent and easy to get the better of.

Pip obviously loves Joe and it is viewed that Joe is Pips whole future, Joe will take Pip under his wing and Pip will become a blacksmith apprentice. Pip sees this future as dull and boring and is very depressed with his life. This is represented by the environment, which is a macrocosm of Pip, the microcosm. “dismal, wilderness” This quote shows Pip viewing the marshes, the land he grew up on, and his home as miserable and shows signs of starting to reject the marshes. Dickens uses the environment to represent what is going on in Pips head. For example the quote about the environment, “bleak, low, raw” are all miserable descriptions and have no life in them, this is how Pip is feeling at the time but Dickens uses it as if he was describing the marshes when in fact he is describing his attitude towards life. In this instance Pip is feeling very down and depressed and is wondering what the point is. The way in which Dickens uses the macrocosm to describe the microcosm is extremely clever and helps the reader to understand what Pip is going through.

It is only when Pip moves away from the marshes that we see his real hatred

And disrespect for them. Just before he goes he gets very arrogant “I wanted to make Joe less ignorant.” This is a very disrespectful comment to make about the person who earlier on Pip looked up to the most. The language that Pip uses is quite interesting and in many ways very ironic, instead of saying that he wanted Joe to become less ignorant he said he “wanted to make” suggesting that the only way to achieve this is if Pip does it himself which is very ironic as Pip is ignorant himself and displays this ignorance with comments such as “I was dusty with the weight of the small coal and that I had weight upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather.” Here he is rejecting Joe and Joes job as a Blacksmith, he suggests that the job is below him and he considers that it is a “dusty”, dirty and bad job. This is a very ignorant and narrow-minded attitude. The comments which I mentioned earlier are very ironic as in fact where Joe is ignorant but not intentionally or causing anyone harm, Pips ignorance needs to be sorted out as it is worse than Joe’s.

It is in chapter 14 where we see Pip rejecting the marshes and rejecting home. “It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.” This is a very strong thing to say and shows us how unhappy he is, however at this point in time the readers do not actually like Pip and so don’t really care. Instead their focus is on feeling sorry for Joe, which is exactly what Dickens planed to do. It is in this chapter where Joes rustic simplicity is highlighted and we see Pip being very childish and ignorant when we wants to act most grown up. He describes Joe as “Plain” and “Contented” and then describes himself as “Discontented” This is again a very ignorant attitude as he is suggesting that Joe has no dreams or visions and that he has nothing to look forward to. This pains me to read as I did genuinely like Pip but Dickens has played up his ignorance so well that I have started disliking him.

Chapter 14 shows how Pip really felt at the time of the novel. There is an example of the macrocosm representing the microcosm, which really shows Pips feelings. This is as follows, “flat and low” again we see the word low which has appeared frequently. This quote is Dickens using the environment to represent Pip hence the macrocosm and the microcosm. Another good description is “a dark mist” here Pip is seen to be talking about the churchyard and the marshes but really he is saying that he doesn’t know what direction his future will go in and it is becoming very misty. The fact that he says “dark” suggests that he is really very concerned as it is not just a light haze blocking his future but a thick “dark mist”.

He shows great feelings towards Miss Havisham and Estella and he is haunted in love with Estella, “with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind” he is daydreaming about his love but soon puts it back into perspective by adding “and her eyes scorning at me” This shows that Pip knows that Estella doesn’t love him but regardless of that he still loves her and continues to do so without a care. The reason that is has such strong feelings towards Miss Havisham and Estella is because they have shown him another way of living, a way in which he would like to be involved and will try his best to become part of. Estella and Miss Havisham are the fuel for Pips Great Expectations and are his main motivation.

This chapter really shows the marshes representing Pip. Dickens does his best to do this all of the way through but it is at this time in the novel where we see his best work, “flat and low”. This is one of the most important parts of the novel because we see Pip moving away from the marshes to try and become a gentleman in London. This is shown more in chapter 15 but in chapter 14 we get down to see the real Pip, which is not a likeable character. He is always ungrateful of others; “Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sisters temper.” He is obtuse and can’t understand that, yes his sister did have a temper but most of the time it would be because of him being late or have done something wrong. He becomes very arrogant and inconsiderate.

Chapter 15 displays Pips decision to leave the marshes and move to London where he can become a gentleman. He thinks that he is below Mr Wopsle’s great aunts class when in fact he is quite the opposite. He is looking at a child’s poem and describes it as “literature”, taking it very seriously. This shows that Pip is quite obtuse as in fact he is trying to become a man and a gentle man and he is looking at a child’s song and singing it. “Too rul loo rul!” This shows that even though he is aspiring to become a gentleman, deep down he is not quite ready or mature enough. The fact that there is an exclamation mark on the end of the word shows that he is putting real effort into singing the song, which is not something to be proud of.

Ever since Pip grew up and started to pity Joe, looking down on him with his motivation being “I wanted to make Joe less ignorant” Dickens is trying to make the reader feel sorry for Joe and he does. A quote that stood out to me for being such an egotistical and horrible comment to make from Pip was the following comment, “I never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another,” this is a true but unnecessary comment. Even though Joe was not the cleverest person and maybe it was true that he couldn’t remember facts there is no need for Pip to talk about him like that.

That quote shook me up because it showed Pip being nasty about Joe behind his back, however the speech that followed hit me even harder and made me feel deeply sorry for poor Joe. “Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else-even with a learned air-as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow I hope he did.” This is disgusting and I bet that Pip would never say anything of the sort to Joes face, as I believe he still loves him. I believe what he is saying is a mere charade to try and help his claim to become a gentleman however Pip is to uneducated to realise that he will never become a proper gentleman as he has no idea of what to do, how to act or how to address people. Joe is full of rustic simplicity and in a way so is Pip. The comments in chapter 15 highlight Joes rustic simplicity whereas Pips is played down

When reading this I have great sympathy for Joe because Pip is very similar to Joe apart from the fact that he has got opportunities. Pip doesn’t really use these opportunities properly and he still moans and complains about his life, “I would feel more ashamed of home than ever.” Pip only got the opportunities through luck whereas Joe never had any chances in life and never complained about it. Joe was always involved in industry; he works hard and is a very simple person however he has never had money. Contrary to this Pip doesn’t work hard, he is always playing rather than doing a job and he is given a lot of money through luck. This is Dickens trying to again make us feel sorry for Joe and again it works. The fact that Joe is such a kind person and is looked down on by the fastidious Pip makes the reader hate Pip and feel for Joe.

Now that Pip has seen another way of living he feels jealous and wants to move. I think that the main reason for this is because he has only ever seen the old way of life and so when a new way is introduced, Miss Havisham and Estella, he wants to get more involved with them. He sees that the only way to get closer to them is to become “a gentleman” so this is why he is going to London. Once he has been in London for a while I will then compare again to see if he prefers his life on the marshes, his life with Estella and Miss Havisham or his life in London.

The one person that Pip seems to be outsmarted by is his friend on the marshes, a girl named Biddy. Biddy is also from the marshes and is Pips friend however we see Pip being, as he does to Joe, quite unpleasant to Biddy. Although Pip is not very nice to Biddy this doesn’t faze her, as she is smarter than Pip and can take what he says and turn it round to confuse Pip. Pip begins to describe and we see him opening up feelings for her. “Her shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean.” Pip desires to become a gentle but he is so common and being from the countryside he has accustomed to certain things, which will cause him to never become a gentleman. The fact that Pip states “Her hands were always clean” is quite amusing. He says it as if he is shocked and thinks that occasionally they should be dirty. High-class women in London would always have clean hands and would never have a chance to get them dirty. However Pip doesn’t realise this, which is quite funny.

He continues with the description and compares her to the other girl in his life – Estella. “She was not beautiful-she was common,” The language here is very interesting. He states that she “is not beautiful” and then the hyphen suggests that he paused after almost to think about what he just said and to give himself a chance to correct himself. However he doesn’t correct himself and continues to speak ill of Biddy “she was common” this is very ironic as Pip is being a snob and looking down on Biddy when he is common as muck and in reality as Biddy is much smarter than Pip she is probably above him.

The reason that he continues to talk about Biddy in a bad way is because of Estella. He does like Biddy but as he wants to become a gentleman he thinks that he can’t admit this and let anybody know that he friends with someone who is “common”. He does really like Biddy and it is down to his love for Estella that he is being nasty about her. In this paragraph he can’t help admitting that he likes Biddy, “she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.” The language that Pip uses is very uneducated and scrappy. The fact that he uses language like this separates him from educated people such as Estella and people in London and from uneducated people such as himself. However all he is trying to do is tell himself to prefer Estella, “and could not be like Estella” The reasons for this is solely that he thinks that it will help his cause to becoming a gentleman if he likes Estella over Biddy.

Chapter 17 contains lots of speech between Pip and Biddy. The whole time Pip is looking down on Biddy but this doesn’t bother Biddy. “‘Biddy,’ said I, ‘how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you are very clever.'” Pip has to have one of these answers, to him it can’t be the fact that he is stupid and Biddy is clever because he can’t believe that Biddy would be cleverer than him. He doesn’t want to admit that Biddy is clever and if she is then he doesn’t want to see himself as stupid he wants to see himself as average. Biddy replies by saying that she doesn’t know what she manages, and she says it with a smile suggesting to me that in fact she does know and it is the fact that Pip is stupid. Here we see Biddy playing with Pip and pretending not to know when really she does.

However Pip, being dull witted doesn’t pick up on this and continues to ask her. What follows is very amusing as it shows Pip looking down on Biddy and thinking he is better than her when really Biddy is in control of the situation. “How do you manage, Biddy, said I, to learn everything I learn, and always to keep up with me?” Pip is basically saying that as he is so much cleverer than Biddy why is it she is able to keep up with him this is not the case, the obvious answer that Pip doesn’t want to see is that Biddy is cleverer than him, that is it, simple. That shows Pip becoming even more arrogant and bigheaded. Dickens is again playing up the side of Pip where he is the character that the reader is encouraged to dislike. Despite the fact that we don’t know that much about Biddy and don’t like her as much as Joe the method still works and Pips attitude towards People makes me dislike him even more by the chapter.

Pips desire to be a gentle involves him moving away from the marshes, I have already established this and part of his moving away is rejection this has already been exampled with him rejecting home and Joe. Another part of his rejecting is the rejection of Biddy, however Biddy carries more weight than the others. His rejection of Biddy is symbolising him moving away from the marshes. This is not physical, instead it is a psychological move and each time he looks down on Biddy he is one step closer to moving away. Pip is currently in this process of moving psychologically but physically he is not quite there, as we see him looking down on Biddy more and more this means that he is a lot closer to moving away physically.

He confronts Biddy and tells her of his desire to be a gentleman, which again shows him moving away. This is not received as he anticipated, instead Biddy in a very common and light hearted way replies, “Oh I wouldn’t if I was you” this is not the answer that Pip was looking for and this is a crushing blow which is bound to annoy him. However Biddy doesn’t leave it there, she says “I don’t think it would answer” Thinks angers Pip and he begins to use very forceful terms in what he considers to be a very serious conversation but what Biddy sees to be a joke. The terms which he uses to re-enforce his point are as follows: “impatiently”, “disgusted”, “absurd”, these are angry words as he is trying to discuss his future and Biddy is not taking him seriously. Even though Biddy is from the countryside she is clever and she doesn’t take Pip seriously because she knows that he will never become a gentleman but he doesn’t know this.

Pip leaves that subject and goes on to talk about his relationship with Biddy. “If only I could get myself to fall in love with you” Remember that Pip does like Biddy and it is only because he believes that if tells himself to prefer Estella then it will aid his cause to become a gentleman. Pip says “if only” suggesting that he can’t and will never be able to. As he can’t do this he is rejecting her and as he does this he is rejecting life on the marshes and psychologically moving further away.

It is in chapter 18 where Pips Expectations are made clear as he meets Jaggers the lawyer for the first time. Pip gets a good view of Jaggers and Dickens makes sure that the main character in London, Jaggers, gets a long first impression. Although Jaggers is with Pip for the whole of chapter 18 it seemed to me that Jaggers was a very rushed character and wanted to get Pip up to London as soon as possible. Pip is told that he has been left some money of which there is enough for “suitable education and maintenance” After Jaggers informs Pip of his Great Expectations Pip can’t get to London quick enough, not just to collect the money but because it will help him become a gentleman. What follows is Pip physically moving away from the marshes, he has been psychologically moving for a long time but now the time has finally come for him to progress and get out of the marshes.

He prepares and leaves in chapter 19 and even though he has been looking down on Joe his true feelings are shown and he shares a very emotional handshake with him “You may be sure dear Joe, I will never forget you” In the recent days Pip had not said anything nice to Joe so to say something like this would mean a lot and he would have had to dig out his true feelings for Joe in order to say it. It just shows that he always loved Joe and was only nasty to him to try and help himself become a gentleman.

At the time of Dickens novel writing, 1812 – 1870 there was an industrial revolution, which involved a movement of people away from the countryside to work in the city. Pip is following a national trend and it is clever of Dickens to include this in his novel. The city is a very different place to the countryside and Dickens is using Pip to represent what the industrial revolution was all about to show people just what they were involved in.

Dickens descriptions of London can be compared and contrasted to descriptions of a poem by William Blake which is entitled “London” and was written in the 1790’s just a little before the work of Dickens. Blake’s poem is a very negative side of London and shows what an awful city London was then. The basic content of the poem is about how the government rule everything and everything is “charter’d”. I will use this poem alongside Dickens descriptions to show the contrast of London from the marshes.

As Pip steps off the “four-horse stage-coach” he instantly admits that he was unaware of what London would be like and says. “I was scared of the immensity of London.” This is very amusing as he has wanted to move away from the marshes for sometime and when he finally gets there he is overwhelmed by the size and doesn’t just think it is large but “immense”. Dickens follows this with very strong adjectives to describe Pips initial reaction of the city, “ugly, crooked, narrow and dirty.” Pip was very arrogant leading up to his move and now that he is here he is even more arrogant and he also becomes big headed. These quotes show his arrogance as he is looking down on someone’s home when the home he came from was not much better than the city he is looking at. Pip goes to Jaggers office but as Dickens feels that the reader has not experienced enough of London even at this early stage it is said that Mr Jaggers “is in court at present” so Pip goes back out to see more of London. However this is not before taking a long look at Mr Jagger’s office.

He walks into Jaggers office and the first thing he says is that he notices that Jaggers office is a most “dismal” place and was only lighted by one skylight, which suggests that the room is dark. The room represents Jaggers and the fact that it is dark shows Jaggers character is not a very nice person and is feared by others. Pip says that the adjoining houses are “distorted” meaning that they are crooked. This shows that physically London is not a nice place and also that it is full of crooks. Pips continues to describe the scary contents of Jaggers office and moves on to his “high backed chair” which he describes as being “of deadly black horse-hair with rows of brass nails round it like a coffin”

This is an amazing description and the way in which Dickens uses the simile of a coffin is the ultimate way of scaring the reader into believing that Jaggers is bad. The chair, which Pip describes as having “deadly black horse-hair”, which in itself is a very imaginative idea which strikes the reader and makes you think about it. When looking at the language Dickens is using it is clear from it that Jaggers is a very feared man and holds lots of authority and has the ability to scare people into agreeing with him making him a very good lawyer. The chair is representing the fear and the threat that Jaggers holds over people and is a very good symbol for this.

As Jaggers is going to be in court for a while, Pip decides to go back outside to see some more of London. This is a plot device that Dickens uses to get the reader to see some more of London. Pip describes the air in London as “hot, exhausted” and states that “dust and grit” lies on everything. This is pollution, which is a contrast to the clean, open, country air of the marshes. Blake also uses pollution in his London poem; he states, “every blackening church appalls,” which literally means that the walls of the churches are becoming black with all the soot and pollution. Even though we have only experienced a small part of London it is clear that London is corrupt which is another angle that Blake uses in his poem, “Runs in blood down Palace walls” this quote is about death and corruption and is showing how London is corrupt. This is like nothing Pip has ever seen before and is such a contrast to the clean smog free marshes that Pip is used to.

He recognises that London is corrupt and with the quote, “being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me.” He is suggesting that London is corrupt and just by being there he also feels corrupt. He suggests that London is full of drunks, “smelly strongly of spirits and beer”. The next comment is more to do with Dickens making a point about justice rather than about the corruption of London. “drunk minister of Justice” this is Dickens showing how unfair and awful the justice system is. This also links back to Blake as Blake’s poem is about how the government runs the people and the justice system is linked in with the government. Blake also makes a point about how bad the government is by saying “I wander thro’ each charter’d street.”

This is a contrast to the marshes as out there justice would have very rarely been used and the government wouldn’t have had much to do with life out there, so this is all new to Pip.

Instruments of torture and public execution were still used then but nothing of the sort would have been seen out in the country so Pip wouldn’t have been used to seeing them. Naturally Dickens makes sure he comes across some to enable Dickens to make a personal about the system of Justice again. As Pip sees some gallows were kept and where people were people were publicly whipped, he says, “This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London” this is using very strong language and the word sickening suggests that Dickens was physically sick when looking at these monstrosities. Blake also uses an instrument of torture in his work and uses it in a very strong line to state his point very strongly about the corruption of London and the Government. The line “The mind-forg’d manacles I hear” suggests that people have had their minds entrapped, bashed together-“forg’d” so they are trapped inside their heads and cannot think for themselves, the government thinks for them, which is what Blake’s poem is all about.

Dickens again uses his plot device and sends Pip back into Jaggers office only to find that he isn’t there so he can go back out and show the people some more of London. Dickens now finishes with justice and makes a point about Social Responsibility and the lack of it. Pip walks out of Jaggers office onto the street and finds more people waiting for Jaggers. He displays some of the people as insane “Oh Jaggerth, Jaggerth, Jaggerth! All otherth ith Cag Maggerth, give me Jaggeth!” The exclamation marks here suggest shouting and the non-sensesical words give a good representation of somebody who is insane. The point that Dickens is trying to make is the fact that there is no care for these people, no one is bothered about them and there is no social responsibility. This is due to the size of London, there are to many people in London to look after them all so instead of helping people just turn a blind eye and pretend not to notice. For Pip this is a contrast from the small marshes where everyone knew everyone and people helped each other out. Dickens is trying to display it as a different world, which it is.

Pip has experienced a small part of London and his first impressions are similar to that of Blakes, he sees London as corrupt and dirty, Pip says “crooked, dirty” and Blake says, “blackening”. It is not surprising that Dickens shares Blakes views of London when both of them grew up in the countryside, it just shows the contrast of the city to the countryside.

In chapter 22 Pip meets a man named Herbert. This is a very important event because we see Pip aspiring to be a social class that he isn’t. All along we have seen this but here he actually does something physical. Pip tells Herbert that his name is Phillip, which we haven’t seen since the opening page of the book. This is quite amusing and Pip is obviously doing his best to fit in and would do anything to do so. We see an example of this when Herbert says he doesn’t like Philip and that he was going to call him Handel. This is very pretentious as he already has a nickname but he has to be given a more ostentatious and upper class one. Pip can’t see that although he has a pompous nickname it will not make him a gentleman. It is this stupidity that will cause him to never become a proper gentleman. The fact that he has been given a new nickname is a contrast to the marshes as back there his name was Pip and no one questioned it. The fact that he has a new name is suggesting that he is trying to start a new life rather than just becoming a gentleman. This shows that Pip is taking this almost to seriously.

In chapter 24 we see Pip settling in and then in chapter 25 we see him living like a gentleman, which was his dream. Now that Pip has been in London for a while he has become very arrogant and bigheaded which is what I anticipated. We see an example of this when in chapter 27 Joe comes to visit him. I stated earlier on that it would be interesting to see Pips reaction to his family once he has seen an alternative lifestyle. He has been living as a gentleman for a while and when Joe comes we see an ugly side of Pip and discover that the attitude he has towards Joe when he was still at home was just the start.

Pip receives a letter from Biddy stating that Joe is coming to London to see him and request that he meets him at a hotel. Pips reaction to poor Joe coming to visit is awful. “If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.” This is a despicable thing to say about the person of whom he lived with for many years coming to visit. He doesn’t think about the fact that Joe is probably bored without him, having to look after his sister, and wants to see his old friend. The fact that Pip refers to Joe as “him” is disrespectful and displays Pips arrogance, he thinks he can talk over Joe and look down on him when in reality he has no right to do so and is still of the same class as Joe.

When he first comes into contact with Joe he says he heard him before he saw him and he knew it was him because of his “clumsy manner of coming upstairs”. Pip is very ungrateful of Joes visit and all through his conversation with him he shows no emotion towards him. However when Joe can’t stand being the fish out of water anymore and has to go Pip is a little sad and realises what he has done. “As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets; but he was gone.” This suggests to him that Pips false, arrogant outer shell finally broke and he wanted to talk to Joe as he used to but it was to late. Pips reaction to Joe was very upsetting and it was more horrid than I expected it to be, I thought that with him being more false he would have not treated Joe well but would have been kinder to him than he was, but alas he wasn’t. This really did upset me and I thought this just showed what London had done to him.

It wasn’t that Pip was a horrible person, when on the marshes he was a very nice little boy, but the depression got to him. When he was on the marshes he had his sister beating him, which would have made anyone want to move. Pip was influenced a lot and had lots of emotion running through him, because he was not very clever he did not know what to make of this emotion and so just acted how he thought was best and didn’t know better. Once he started to be arrogant he couldn’t stop, it wasn’t that he was being horrible on purpose but with all his emotion and mixed influence he just turned out wrong and then couldn’t get right.

This is Dickens trying to show what London can do to you. All through the start of the novel he encouraged the reader to feel sorry for Joe knowing that later on Pip could be really horrible to him and back up his points by getting the audience on his side. It is very rare for the reader to hate the narrator and it is also very hard to write a book where the narrator is the evil one. However Dickens has done this very well and when reading this book I couldn’t believe how well it was written.

I will conclude by saying that the life in London is so much different from the life on the marshes. It is so different that it is hard to believe that they are in the same country. I think that Pip does in fact prefer his life on the marshes as it is free of pollution, corruption and he can be himself. Dickens managed to get his hatred for London across very well and combined with Blake’s poem of the same subject it just shows what an awful place London was to be back then.