Great Expectations Essay

As part of my GCSE coursework, I beat involve two novels written by Charles Dickens. The frontmost novel is Oliver Twist, from, whwhich I lead look at a scoundrel c onlyed pinnacle Sikes who is a freebooter, a ho applybreaker, a makeer and one of Ddickens most sullen characters. I forget look at how Dickens characterises him as a baddie. s makes him a villain. The second book I read was Great Expectations, infrom which I will look at another villain called Magwitch who bullies a young boy named film into helping him q. escaping from prison. I will withal look at how Dickens characterises himmakes him as a villain..I will therefore compare Bboth characters will then be compared and contrasted in my study. . The first person I will look at is Bill Sikes who is a murderer, a thief, a housebreaker, a bully and is part of Fagans gang. forrader we meet Sikes, Dickens dDescribes his environment. Firstly it is describe as an obscure parlour of a low public house, a dark and glo omy den, in the filthiest part of Little Saffron pitcher and where no cock of sun eer shone in the summer. Adjectives such as obscure, low, dark gloomy and filthiest are all negative and suggest to me a really offensive and rough environment.The place be described as where no ray of sun ever shone in the summer, suggests to me further of the places turpitude and that the public house is set in a back ally. The room Sikes is rigid in is called a Den, A den is a place where animals normally live, so it suggests to me that this is an inhuman place, not fitted for a persons habitation. Over all I domiciliate say that the atmosphere is too bleak and miserable, the setting is used to smooth character and to create atmosphere suggestingand Sikes is in part, athe product of his own environment.Sikes is said to have been brooding, this suggests that Sikes had been in deep thought, conniving and plotting evil things. Sikes is described as powerfully impregnated with the smell of liquor, this suggests to me that he we was super intoxicated and the result, would mean that he would be grumpy, and irrational. He wares a velvet coat, no-good shorts, half-boots and stockings. As you can see his clothes is very drabmonotonous and this suggests to the reader the obscure and dismal nature of Sikes and the world he inhabits. ity Sikes of which Sikes can possess.Sikes is described as even by that dim light, no inexperienced actor of police would have hesitated for one jiffy as Mr. William Sikes. This suggests to the reader that Sikes is well cognize by the police and is obviously a common criminal. Sikes andiron is described as being red-eyed. This is emblematic of depression and exasperation and many other negative emotions, so it is apparent that the fire cut through is symbolic to the negativeness in Sikes environment and is also a product of bad environment whitethorn be symbolic that the dog is symbolic of the uncut environment.The dog sits at his senior pilotsmasters feet, this shows the relationship between the dog and his master as being close and bump and proves Sikes ownership of the animal. Later the unoffending dog is attacked and by Sikes, this shows that Sikes is very volatile, unpredictable, unstable and atrocious be arrive at he attacks his dog for no cause and acts very spontaneously with his warringness. After the attacking, the dog avenges his attack it, by attacking Sikes half-boots. This shows that the dog has a bad temper and has a lot in common with his master.This lastly leads to a fight and Sikes attempted murder of the dog. This shows how malevolentsatanic Sikes can be. Sikes is a very aggressive man in his language, he blasphemes and curses, thrusts and swears This image of language is rather unpleasant, shows negative emotions to a reader. This sort of dictionspeech gives a sense of frenzy to the reader. When Sikes speaks to his dog he says make unnecessary quiet, you warmint Keep quiet Here he c ommands and insults, so it shows that he is violent when he talks. We see this because Dickens has used exclamation tag to show that he was talking in anger.This can also be seen when he talks to Fagan for example you white-livered thief This shows the anger in the voice with the use of insults and exclamatoryion phrases. marks. Sikes also seeksspeaks to Fagian with a fierce apparent motiongesture this adds to Sikes sinister character because it suggests that again Sikes is angry and violent with his oral expression. Sikes oftentimes growled, had a fierce sneer and speaks heavy-handed like. This further makes him look offensive and unhappy. These details present him as brutal, animalistic and primitive. Sikes speaks with the harshest key of a very harsh voice.This suggests that he is very unpleasant when he usually speaks. Therefore I would say that the way in which Sikes speaks shows that inhuman treatment and ill-intent of his character. Thus from this extract we are atta ched the impression that Sikes is incredibly evil, menacing, he is unhappy, intimidating, cutthroat and volatile. This impression is reinforced later in the novel in which we look at Sikes killing his prostitute lover Nancy and the events lede up to it. It begins with Noah, repeating what he told Fagin to Sikes. Fagin cries, and says itemize him that, tell him that.