Chapters 1 to 9 — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Chapters 1 to 9
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The first stage begins: the convict in the churchyard, Christmas Day and the hunt on the marshes, Pip's guilt,
and his first visit to Miss Havisham and Estella at Satis House.
What each chapter establishes about character and theme, with key quotations.
Key quotations: 'the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip', 'A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg', 'Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!', 'brought me up by hand', 'Why is it that the young are never grateful?', 'we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur', 'the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners', 'I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right', 'the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see', 'stopped at twenty minutes to nine', 'I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress', 'And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!', 'there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice', 'Pause you who read this'.
Form: the older Pip narrating his childhood, the Gothic churchyard and marshes, and Satis House, where time has stopped.
Context: the prison hulks moored off the marshes, and the soldiers' hunt for the escaped convicts.
