PB1A

Last year, I was introduced into Charles Dickens, more specifically to his novel, Great Expectations. Great Expectations had a unique aspect to it; it was novel that had many holes which let the story move on, but towards the end they all were answered. While the novel wasn’t necessarily a mystery, more of a coming of age, it still had that strong mystery aspect, so that’s what I will focus on, the mystery aspect of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. 

The mystery aspect of this novel comes into play always when you think that nothing will change. For example, in the beginning the main character Pip is present as a regular boy in a lower class family, but then after a few years of going to this one house and coming to an age where he should be getting an education, he happens to come across some money being given to him by an unknown person. Most would assume that it is the woman who is the owner of the house he has been going to, but that assumption is wrong. It is possible for the reader to sometimes figure out some explanation that will make sense, but that thing that make the correct in these stories are sometime based on the details that the reader was introduced to, but never paid much attention to them.

Dickens’ incorporates the mystery aspect into his novel to keep the reader at distance and wanting more to figure out whether their, the readers, conclusions are right; of course the main target of audience for this novel aren’t people who are into mysteries, but rather those who are into novels of coming of age, a life story, and realism, but the mystery portion is just an added bonus that gives this novel its uniqueness and adds to strengthen its plot. The style of giving some insight and then ignoring it till the end, was very effect and just as Dirk said, “when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when the situation happens again, another person uses the first response as the basis for the second,” and other people base their response on both responses, “…resulting in the basis of a genre.” (Navigating Genres, 252) The novels influence can be seen in movies such Pulp Fiction where the director gives us parts of the story through different points of views, but in the end they all come together to form a well narrated piece of cinematography. One of the best reasons why the mystery aspect incorporates so well into this novel is because of the gloomy and dark tone set which always correlates well with a mystery aspect of anything.

Another unique aspect that makes up a Charles Dickens mystery in this novel is the way every hole gets filled. The amount of creativity it takes to come up with the resolution to each one is just awing. He sets them up from the very beginning and towards the end they each begin to unravel one by one.