Writer's methods — Great Expectations — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Writer's methods
Writer's methods
What you need to know
How Dickens's form, structure and language create meaning: the first-person narrator looking back, the three stages and the serial's weekly parts,
Gothic settings and symbols, caricature and comedy, dialect, and doubles and foils.
First-person narration looking back: the older Pip judging his younger self with irony, regret and hindsight.
Structure: three stages of Pip's expectations, short chapters written for weekly parts, a secret kept until Magwitch's return, and the revised ending.
Setting and symbol: the marshes and mists, Satis House and its stopped clocks, the wedding cake, fire, hands, and the irons and chains of crime.
Characterisation: caricature and comic names (Pumblechook, Wopsle), dialect for Joe and Magwitch, and doubles and foils such as Orlick, Drummle and Herbert.
