by Aela Ajdinovic

Created on: October 22, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

The most effective way of analyzing the novel, any given novel in fact, is to analyze in detail the first sentence and the first page. This universal rule will guide you through the work, signaling like a beacon the most significant details and the hidden truth.

The first line of the Great Expectations clearly points out towards the biggest dilemma in the novel, the problem of identity. The problem of identity or the lack of proper family care is one of the key factors that influenced Pip's life. A second possible solution to the question of identity is the perfect psychological analyses of the main character. This kind of a character analyses was quite new, an innovation in the novel writing. Prior to the development of the novel, the characters were portrayed as flat and little did the novelists regard the need to have a lot more complex characters.

Once you read further into the first page, you get to the third beacon in the novel and that is its setting. This is a Victorian novel, and these novels often try to depict the society at that precise stage. Novelists saw a perfect opportunity and later used it as a device in their need to portray the society as perfectly as possible. The English setting served as that ideal device when striving to depict the reality of the Victorian society. Cold, dark, gloomy and fog-covered country provides astonishing effect in giving the realistic picture of the time in question. Marshes or the marsh country was the land where Pip was born and where he grew up. Precisely these marshes served best for many later novelists like Emily Bront in her attempt to portray the blackness and the evil lurking in the human soul.

Pip's most vivid impression of the marshes can serve as the constant symbol reminding us of the cruelty and injustice forever embedded in the society. For Pip, the marshes are a dark flat wilderness, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates. However, the next line introduces a completely new concept, the notion of the sea. However, for our main hero, the sea is the distant savage, and as a symbol, it has many different connotations in the world of literature. The sea means an escape, a place of spiritual change. Pip does not share any of the previously noted implications, as for many characters from the Victorian Novel there is no escape from England, there is no escape from the marshes.

The importance of setting is quite visible in the novel, and without the setting of a crude, greed-filled society Great

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