A LINGUO-POETIC ANALYSIS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS BY CHARLES DAICKENS

I would like to begin my linguo-poetic analysis of the given extract with some introductory information.

Dickens was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters. Many of his novels, with their recurrent concern for social reform, first appeared in magazines in serialised form, a popular format at the time. The novel ?Great Expectations? was first published in serial form from 1860 to 1861 in the magazine All the Year Round, which was owned by Dickens himself. The novel describes memories of the main character named Pip similar to Dickens' of his own childhood. Pip seems powerless to stand against injustice or to ever realize his dreams for a better life. However, as he grows into a useful worker and then an educated young man he reaches an important realization: grand schemes and dreams are never what they first seem to be. Pip himself is not always honest, and careful readers can catch him in several obvious contradictions between his truth and fantasies. The novel has an optimistic end ( Pip and Estella will unite at last) is due to the Diskens?s idea that good heroes should be rewarded and bad ones punished. The novel is regarded as a classic example of the realist genre, that is it attempts to represent the real world from an objective perspective. The story is told in the first person. A typical child's lack of learning and experience inevitably impact on the content of the narrative and how it is communicated to the reader. For example, the author would be considerably limited in terms of the vocabulary they could employ for the story to remain plausible. Dickens overcomes these problems by implementing a dualistic narrative voice. An observant reader notices that it is the child Pip who experiences the story's events in the earlier chapters, yet it is the adult Pip who recounts them to the reader, using the mature language abilities of an adult.

The passage for analysis is taken from the 19^th chapter. In this chapter Pip is informed that an anonymous benefactor would like to transform him into a gentleman. The stranger, a lawyer named Jaggers, will administer Pip's new income and suggests that Pip move to London and take a man named Matthew Pocket as his tutor, who happens to be a relative of Miss Havisham. Pip assumes that Miss Havisham is his mysterious benefactor. Pip buys himself some new clothes and bidding his family farewell goes to London. It?s a turning point in the novel: he hopes to become a gentleman, to be worthy of Estella and to win her love. At this moment it?s all he can dream of. Diskens himself ends the passage under analysis as ?the first stage of Pip?s expectations?.

The passage begins with the statement: And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had run out fast and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more steadily than I could look at it.

In this sentence we are already told of the expectations, which proved to be wrong: the narrator unexpectedly notices that the six day he expected to run out slowly are finished. Thus, the author hints that Pip's small overestimation of this expectation was his delusion. The idea of the rough reality is enhanced by the use of personification: to-morrow looked me in the face more steadily The enumeration in the next sentence highlights and idea of Pip's counting days, of his surprise how quickly they pass: As the six evenings had dwindled away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. The use of repetition more and more reflects Pip's growing understanding of his attachment to Joe and Biddy. The next sentences of the first paragraph reveal Pip's boastfulness and vanity. He sits in his new clothes in his splendour until bedtime, the remark ?for their delight? is a tone of insincerity and self-delusion: Pip dressed in his best clothes not only for ?their delight? but for his own as well. The use of the pronoun ?my? in the word-combination ?my splendour? points at Pip's vanity and his later understanding of his being vain, as his tells his story in retrospective. Theword-combination?inevitable roast fowl? is socio-linguistically marked, it points at the tradition of this family, and the tradition of the nation to have roast fowl for special occasions, that is why here the roast fowl is described as ?inevitable?. The sentence We were all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits demonstrates how the use of antithesis ?low ?. higher? helps to show the contrast between what the characters expected to feel at their dinner and what they really felt. And again the theme of expectations is noticeable in the extract.

The second paragraph provides some more evidence for Pip's vanity. In this paragraph the narrator confesses that when he asked Joe not to accompany him on his way to the coach, he did it, because he was ashamed of the contrast between Joe and himself. This revelation is filled with sorrow, and here we can here the sorrow of an older Pip. We can notice it with the change of grammatical tenses: I am afraid - sore afraid - that this purpose originated in my sense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to the coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing of this taint in the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room on this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and had an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me in the morning. I did not.

Only the construction: I am afraid - sore afraid is marked with the Present Simple Tense, thus these are the words of the narrator, his so-called present position. The other parts of this paragraph belong to the past. The repetition of the word afraid enhances the narrator's present position, the word-combination ?sore afraid? reveals the narrator's estimation of his past action. Young Pip was not so convinced about the nature of his decision to go alone this is expressed with the help of modal construction ?it might be so?. It is important that Pip had an impulse to ask Joe to walk with him in the morning, but he did not. The last sentence is deliberately elliptical: I did not. The narrator doesn't seek any excuses, he simply confesses what his true motifs were.

The third paragraph describes Pip's dream about the possible misfortunes during his forthcoming travel. His disturbed mind provoked his broken sleep full of Pip's hidden fears. It is significant that in his dream the coach cannot find the right trace and makes one mistake after another. The enumeration enhanced by the repetition of the word ?now? reflects the idea of Pip's hesitation and anxiety. All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men - never horses.

The fourth paragraph represents Pip's mixed feelings about his departure. Sitting at the window of his bedroom, he wanted the resolution to go downstairs. But instead of going Pip remained in his room repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again . This part of the paragraph is very significant, as it reflects Pip's hesitations about his departure, about his choice and probably, the correctness of the ?trace? he chooses (if we bear in mind his dream). This part of the paragraph is enhanced with repetition long after ?. long after... and antithesis unlocking, unstrapping and locking, strapping.

The fifth paragraph describes Pip's departure. The passage is enhanced by the use of repetition of the conjunction ?and? : I kissed my sister who was laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck. ? I stopped then, to wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, crying huskily "Hooroar!" and Biddy put her apron to her face. This helps the narrator's recollections to run smoothly. The word-combination describing Joe and Biddy's throwing of an old shoe after Pip is socio-linguistically determined, as it reflects an ancient tradition to wish good luck to travellers. We can find proof in old times poems, for example Heywood wrote:

"And home again hitherward quick as a bee,
Now for good luck, cast an old shoe at me;"

The sixth paragraph reveals Pip's feelings after he leaves the village. The first part of the paragraph describes Pip's reflections. Then at the sight of the beauty of his village Pip breaks into tears. The picturesque view reminds Pip of his own childhood. The description of the village is enhanced with epithets: peaceful, quiet, solemnly rising. His sorrow about leaving is expressed through the repetition: "Good-bye O my dear, dear friend!"

The seventh paragraph is the narrator's reflections on the moment he cried. He compares tears with rain upon the blinding dust of earth with the help of similie. The repetition of the word ?more? makes the author's idea stand out in the text: I was better after I had cried, than before - more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. The narrator's sorrow about his past behaviour is reflected with the help of Past Subjunctive: If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then.

The eighth and the ninth paragraphs describe Pip's mixed feelings and hesitations as he goes in a carriage. His deliberations are enhanced with the repetition and ? and ? and.... Trying to comfort his aching conscience, Pip thinks of possibilities to have another evening home and have a better parting. The last two sentences are enhanced with repetition again ? again .and parallel structures .We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too lateand too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.. The author finishes his chapter with the words: This is the end of the first stage of Pip's expectations.

Thus, this extract is very important for understanding the global purport of the novel. The themes of delusions and vanity which run through the whole novel are noticeable in this passage. Another major theme of the novel ? search for Self is also reflected in this part. The extract demonstrates the genius of Dickens's narration ? he manages to make his first-person narration dual ? we distinctly hear two voices: that of a younger narrator and that of an older one. The passage is expressive owing to various stylistic techniques: lexical, such as similie, personification and metaphors and syntactic ones, such as parallel structures, repetition and inversion.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 103