Great Expectations - close readings
7.5 A Gothic portrayal
Great Expectations is generally regarded as one of Dickens’s mature works. That is, after several decades of experience as a professional author, he had developed his skills to a point that he could achieve a diversity of effects with clarity and with evident confidence in his ability to coax his readers into moods that they might not have anticipated. One of the most characteristic ways Dickens does this is by presenting his readers with glimpses of the world they themselves inhabit, seen in ways that they might never have considered. Sometimes, this means looking into places that have been ignored by most people – in life and in literature – and at other times, by looking on familiar settings differently.
In order to see some of the ways Dickens matured as an author, and, indeed, how his aims in some of the descriptions in Great Expectations might differ from those in his earlier work, we are going to compare some feature of his style here with those of his earliest work. So begin by reading the three paragraphs below, and making a few notes on how you think the narrator fills his description with thoughts and images that make the setting both real and personal. (For example, what does Pip mean by the phrase ‘nooks of ruin’?)
The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing courts behind the High-street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high trees of the priory-garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that Estella was gone out of it for ever.
An elderly woman whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in the supplementary house across the back court-yard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.
Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood, touching the old chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how in the progress of time I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice, ‘Is it real?’
When you have examined this passage, take a look at the activity below.
Group activity: A Gothic portrayal
Compare Dickens’s style here with some of his very earliest writings on Reading Dickens. Here, if you scroll part way down the page, you will see links to eight of Dickens’s stories and sketches from the 1830s. Browse over these, and see what you can discover about how he tried to make the settings evocative in these brief works. How do these compare to his descriptions in Great Expectations? Make a few notes and share them with the group in the Great Expectations 2 forum.