Gothic Elements in Great Expectations

The work of Charles Dickens is prized for its social comment although the literature of the Gothic also exerted a significant influence over his realist narratives. This article explores a scene which occurs in chapter 8 of the first volume of Great Expectations, where the protagonist Pip experiences a terrifying vision at Satis House. The citations refer to the Oxford World's Classics 1998 edition of the text. The scene where Pip experiences his vision of Miss Havisham's hanging body in Satis House's long defunct brewery utilizes a variety of linguistic and literary effects for its impact. The pace of the narrative at this point is deliberately slow, with long sentences comprising short clauses. The reader is not immediately made aware of exactly what the "strange thing" (p.63) is, but instead tentatively follows Pip's gaze as he takes in "the frosty light" (p.63) and the "great wooden beam" (p.63) before arriving at "a figure hanging there by the neck" (p.63) and realising that it is Miss Havisham. This type of effect has been termed 'psychological sequencing', and it is used to identify an author's deliberate withholding of information which they would normally be expected to give the reader straight away. Psychological sequencing undoubtedly creates suspense but it also conveys information regarding Pip's viewpoint and reaction. The withholding of information either indicates that Pip didn't notice the figure completely, or was so struck by the horror of it that he momentarily suffered a lapse in comprehension. This section is abundant in stylistic repetition, most noticeably with the words "strange" and "terror". These words in particular are of note for they temporarily shift the narrative away from its realist roots and into the realms of the Gothic. Yet a degree of realism is still retained through the attention to detail in Pip's description of his vision, describing the body, "with but one shoe to the feet" (p.63) and aspects of its attire, "the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper" (p.63). The majority of Dickens's fiction could be classed as social realism; although there is no denying that much of his writing has a distinctly Gothic aspect, apparent during Pip's experiences in the brewery. The gruesome discovery of a hanging body would have appeared to have been a regular occurrence in the Gothic novels of the late 1700s, the heyday of Gothic fiction. This is evinced in 'Terrorist novel writing', published in a review of 1798, where "An old woman hanging by the neck; with her throat cut" is listed as one of the main 'ingredients' in a joke recipe clearly taking a satirical swipe at the formulaic nature of much Gothic fiction. Yet there are certainly similarities between that image and Pip's vision of Miss Havisham.

If hanging bodies were a motif of eighteenth-century Gothic fiction, they are certainly a recurrent theme in Great Expectations, with this scene having several parallels throughout Dickens's novel. During the opening scene in the churchyard for example, while watching the escaped convict Abel Magwitch walking towards a nearby gibbet, which had once held a pirate, Pip imagines that Magwitch himself was that pirate, and was returning "to hook himself up again" (p.7). Much later in the novel Magwitch is sentenced to the gallows. The lawyer Jaggers employs a maid called Molly who he managed to save from the gallows. It later transpires that Magwitch and Molly are in fact Estella's parents. Even the image of Miss Havisham's body is referenced again when Pip relates how as a young adult he returned to Satis house, walked into the brewery and recalled the terrifying vision from his childhood: "A childish association revived with wonderful force... I

fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam" (p.397). An acknowledgement of these thematic parallels highlights how a broader exploration of a narrative can underscore the significance of individual scenes. The next paragraph sees the protagonist recovering his senses, conveyed through a short descriptive section detailing familiar aspects of the everyday. The features described stand in stark contrast to the horrifying vision in the brewery.