Can We Know When To Trust Our Emotions In The Pursuit Of Knowledge? Consider History And One Other Area Of Knowledge.

Charles Dickens – Great Expectations.



‘Great Expectations’ is a novel written by Charles Dickens. An author who lived in Victorian times. In those times people or where very rich, orvery poor, there was nearly no middle class, this is why the majority of people lived hungry on the streets. In the first chapter, the main character is introduced, Pip. We are told a bit about hisbackground. He is a poor child, who has lost his parents and the rest of his family, except for his sister, with who he lives.
Pip is in the grave yard, looking at his parents’ tombstone when an oldman, very bad looking comes over to him and starts threatening him, saying that if he doesn’t bring food and money to him he will kill him. Pip is really scared, but doesn’t know what to do. To givethe tramp the food and money, stealing it from his sister and her husband, who don’t have much of it, or risking being killed by the old man.

In his chapter we are introduced to Pip, reallycalled Philip Pirrip, who is the main protagonist and narrates the story, and to Magwitch, the old scavenger.
Our sympathies lie to Pip because he is a poor kid who has lost all of his familyand is now threatened by a very scary man. But we also feel a bit sorry for Magwhich, because he is also poor and old, and probably has nowhere to live, or nothing to eat.
Magwhich is describedas being disgusting. He is said to have “a great iron on his leg” which we deduce to be that he is an escaped prisoner, and has nowhere to go.
The characters are very different but at the sametime very similar, they are both in difficult situations, and are trying to do anything they can to get out of it.

It is set in Victorian times, where everything was grey and dull. The weatheris bad in this chapter. It is cold and beginning to rain. It is described as dangerous so it makes the reader anxious about Pip not getting hurt. It is pathetic fallacy because it is a bad...