000 15 dr grogan great expectations lecture 2 slides
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This document discusses the narrative perspective of Great Expectations. It explains that Pip narrates the novel as a first-person retrospective from his perspective as a middle-aged man looking back on his life. This creates a complexity as there are two Pips - the character and the narrator. The narrator provides commentary and interpretation that gives insight into Pip's development. Pip's childhood experiences with injustice and feelings of guilt made him susceptible to changing his circumstances through his great expectations.
000 15 dr grogan great expectations lecture 2 slides
- 2. Narrative Perspective • The perspective through which we view the events of the novel • Relates to the narrator (sometimes a character in the novel/sometimes an objective voice) • First-person, third-person and second-person narrators? • Pip is the narrator of Great Expectations – he narrates the novel from his perspective as a middle-aged man who has been through the events described
- 3. Question from the last lecture Why is Great Expectations presented through Pip’s first-person narration, and what does this add to our understanding of the text?
- 4. The first-person narrator • In first-person narrative: • the only information to which we have access comes from the narrator’s perspective • the act of interpretation is often emphasised (the narrator must interpret his or her experiences) • May include a number of other narratives (stories) that reflects on the life of the narrator
- 5. Pip’s narration • First-person retrospective (past-tense) narration • fictional autobiography: • Pip tells the story of his life – why? • Pip (a middle-aged adult) looks back on his life to explain who he is and to understand what has made him the kind of person he has become
- 6. Pip’s concern with the past and its relation to his identity • Pip’s narration of the story of his life shows his concern with the past and his interest in understanding how it has shaped him • First paragraphs of the novel
- 7. First paragraphs of the novel • “My father’s family name … cut your throat!’” (9-10) • Introduce Pip as a child • Introduce Pip as a narrator looking back at his life with sympathy and humour • Show his interest in establishing/interpreting who he is (even from a very early age) • Show his interest in the past • Bind his identity to Magwitch (Pip’s earliest memory of locating himself in the world, of finding an identity, occurs when Magwitch enters his life).
- 8. The complexity of first-person retrospective narration • There are two Pips in Great Expectations • Pip, the narrator who tells the story • Pip, the character in the story • Creates a narrative ‘doubleness’
- 9. Pip’s ‘doubleness’ • character/narrator • naivety/experience • youth/maturity • description/commentary
- 10. Pip’s ‘doubleness’ Pip the narrator is making sense of his life through telling his story. Pip the character is trying, like all of us, to make sense of his life as it happens. The two perspectives of telling the story and experiencing it meet in the novel – so too do Pip’s naivety and his experience, his youth and his maturity.
- 11. Description • Pip reports what was said and done to him in the past in a manner that presents it as directly as possible • The reader is encouraged to experience what has happened to Pip exactly as he experienced it at the time
- 12. Description • These descriptions have been selected by the narrator: • The narrating Pip chooses to: • describe incidents that are significant to him and his development as a character • withhold information to create mystery (he is a good storyteller)
- 13. Commentary • Occasionally Pip comments on his thoughts about his experiences from his perspective as an adult looking back at his past • These are important moments in the novel: • Pip’s commentary give us insight into his development as a character; it tells us what he has learnt
- 14. Example of commentary “That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” (Chapter IX, p. 60)
- 15. Another example of Pip’s commentary “As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character, I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe. My conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke
- 16. in the night … I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham’s face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone, looking at the fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home.”
- 17. Commentary • Because Pip’s adult commentary comes into his description, we retain sympathy for his character • We recognise the wisdom of his narration • Although Pip may be led astray by the lure of money and gentility, we know that this is merely a phase in his life • We are forced to ask ourselves: would Pip have attained his wisdom without his experiences?
- 18. Bildungsroman • Pip’s narration contributes to the emphasis on his development • Pip’s self-knowledge depends on him stopping to tell his story to make sense of it and therefore of himself • the changes in his life force him to look at himself anew • He must ‘re-read’ his life and revise his understanding of what he thinks is important
- 19. Pip’s character: childhood • Why is Pip susceptible to the lure of change and money accompanying his “great expectations”? • Clues are provided in the description of his childhood: • Pip’s sister keeps reminding Pip that she has “brought him up by hand”. • Pip is taught to feel guilty.
- 20. • “I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to construct them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.” (Chapter IV, p. 24)
- 21. Pip’s childhood – begins to hate injustice “My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive … Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance” (Chapter VIII, p. 54)
- 22. The theme of Injustice • Pip experiences injustice as a child, which contributes to his desire to escape his original circumstances • What other characters have experienced injustice, and how have their experiences affected their lives? • Dickens suggests that the past has a complex influence on the shaping of our characters • In other words, he suggests that the past is never truly behind us (which Pip will come to realise and which will be reflected in his narration of his story)
- 23. For you to think about: • Is Pip’s childhood only characterised by injustice? • How does Great Expectations suggest that the past can be both good and bad? • What characters reflect Pip’s ambivalence in relation to his childhood? • Does this ambivalence relate to Pip’s development of character? In other words, does he eventually look at his childhood anew?
- 24. In our next lecture(s): • We will begin to discuss the importance of other characters in Pip’s life: • Joe Gargery • Miss Havisham • Estella • Biddy • Magwitch