Commentary of the first page of the novel Flashcards
Here expectations are..
Here expectations are fulfilled because the protagonist is presented to the reader. And when you open a book expect to have an expository scene. Here = expository scene with 2 main characters that play the main roles
Text presents both Pip and Phillip pirrip the narrator of his own story we will study their relation ship because theme = anthological questions on identity
Some of the main themes are here presented
Pip
what there is a name
He starts with his father name. You are not born ex-nihilo, you have a line of ancestor, a lineage + His christian name = someone who belongs to a line + to a religious background.
Infancy = incapability to express oneself clearly. Here, a deficient tongue. Declaration of identity is ++ assertive and leave no doubt to who the protagonist is.
DeclaraO of independence on the part of the protagonist. Naming oneself : autonomy & bondage
You are someone when you start naming yourself.
Chiasmus btw Pop and Phillip Prrrip
Au milieu de Pip ‘I’ = plutot que rien de PIrrip ⇒ mot + simple et + court mais qui concentre intentio sur le I
In keeping with meaning of “pip” seed / th core identity / palindrome
⇒ tout est concentré dans le coeur = Buildings Roman
2nd paragraph = narrator apologise for distorted vision he had ⇒ distortion
Pip distortion of his name might well prevail his distortion of identity.
→ Pip only manages to define himself by contrasting his body to the broad environment l222 onwards anaphora of “and that”
→ He is trying to establish his genealogy (ie his link with the past) Time and space connected. Trying to make sense out of the chaos surrounding him. (georganea…) Illusion of familiarity by naming the family members ⇒ gives him a form of reassurance.
BUT If you step back ⇒ wilder environment : see what lies around :
the landscape of the marshes ++ frightening, oppressive for a child.
NO sense of freedom : you’re not free, every step may be dangerous. As if attempting to fight against this alien landscape ⇒ emprisonnement.
Structure of the sentence that mirrors the geography of the place
“low leaden line”l29 ; liquidity of the consonants that evoke the liquid world of the marshes : gates and dykes intersecting it ; semi-colons providing the sentence with a structure.
This leads back to the “small bundle of shivers”..ie pip
Trying to guess who you are = trying to make links between who you are
Structure of the sentence that mirrors the geography of the place
“low leaden line”l29 ; liquidity of the consonants that evoke the liquid world of the marshes : gates and dykes intersecting it ; semi-colons providing the sentence with a structure.
This leads back to the “small bundle of shivers”..ie pip
Trying to guess who you are = trying to make links between who you are
Mimesis btw letter, words and the nature of things
Cf his father’s and his mother’s tombstones & the letters in which he reads the description of his parents. Shape of the letter // the “character” and turn of the inscription. Lozenges : a foot and a half long : personification of letters.
Pseudo familiarity of the names evokes vs the wilderness beyond. Homely feeling of a boy who tries to get a feeling of anchorage in the wild / wide world. Tries to find a centre : next to the church.
==> Prégnance de la mort. Texte qui ouvre sur la mort, sur l’hommage aux ancêtres.
II Magwitch
The threat made true
Onomastics : Latin : “magus” (magician) + witch : hints at something demonically irrepressible about him.
Fearful man, coarse, grey, great iron : no hat. Paratactic sentence that depicts him l6 p10 : purely sensational description. Sight and hearing : the child, because of his fright, reactis with his senses. The man seems born out of the marshes : no links, ellipses of the verbs ; the hostile environment has marked the man. He comes from the earth in an almost uncanny way : “from among the graves l4p10, as if he were coming from the underworld
⇒When you are child react with senses
stones / cut by flints / stung by nettles.”
Almost word for word repetition of the way Pip perceived the marshes around him : link btw man and this no-man’s land. ⇒ marshes have printed his body. Here non man’s land give birth to this man who has no name, no identity.
At first, no name identity, no christian name.
Diff form Magwitch who comes from besides : Magwitch = à coté, Magwitch est marginal au texte et par opposition aux graves etc lieu de sépulture.
Magwitch comes from the gates from underworld ⇒ he is a threat come true
Language he speaks is different from the language of Pip. ++ sociolects in Dicken’s writing. Magwitch is the catalyst
II Magwitch
The threat made true
Onomastics : Latin : “magus” (magician) + witch : hints at something demonically irrepressible about him.
Fearful man, coarse, grey, great iron : no hat. Paratactic sentence that depicts him l6 p10 : purely sensational description. Sight and hearing : the child, because of his fright, reactis with his senses. The man seems born out of the marshes : no links, ellipses of the verbs ; the hostile environment has marked the man. He comes from the earth in an almost uncanny way : “from among the graves l4p10, as if he were coming from the underworld
⇒When you are child react with senses
stones / cut by flints / stung by nettles.”
Almost word for word repetition of the way Pip perceived the marshes around him : link btw man and this no-man’s land. ⇒ marshes have printed his body. Here non man’s land give birth to this man who has no name, no identity.
At first, no name identity, no christian name.
Diff form Magwitch who comes from besides : Magwitch = à coté, Magwitch est marginal au texte et par opposition aux graves etc lieu de sépulture.
Magwitch comes from the gates from underworld ⇒ he is a threat come true
Language he speaks is different from the language of Pip. ++ sociolects in Dicken’s writing. Magwitch is the catalyst
Contrast btw Magwitch and Pip’s father
“Quick of the death” = les vivants et les morts comme si magwitch = mort alors que Pip = les vivants
Pip doit devenir sir = great expectations mais deja s’exprime⇒ PIp sir
He comes from besides the graves at the side of the church porch
Church porch = any good human being goes through it at the different stages of one’s life : baptism / confirmation & marriage burial
Magwithc comes through the gates : Hell / world of Hades
Contrast btw Magwitch and Pip’s father
“Quick of the death” = les vivants et les morts comme si magwitch = mort alors que Pip = les vivants
Pip doit devenir sir = great expectations mais deja s’exprime⇒ PIp sir
He comes from besides the graves at the side of the church porch
Church porch = any good human being goes through it at the different stages of one’s life : baptism / confirmation & marriage burial
Magwithc comes through the gates : Hell / world of Hades
Magwitch as a catalyst of Pip’s reaction
Prompts him to define himself and also defines him” Quick” = belongs to the world of the living, cf the quick and the dead. Pip jerked upside down : makes him acknowledge that death is also part of life, that nothing is permanent
Steeple : not monumental and unchallenged = époque victorienne : plus rien n’est stable ni sure, dieu est mort
Open Pip’s eyes and make him see the world from a different perspective.
“When the church came to itself” not “when I came to myself” as if not aware that he is the one ⇒ instability of the world around him
++ impressionist text
⇒ Magwitch = celui qui renverse les valeurs chrétiennes
III. Themes and Narration : the novel in a nutshell
Life as a struggle
The Darwinian aspect of the text “universal struggle” l13 p 9+ note 3
Pip as a survivor : life and death intertwined right from the beginning : burial mound / leaden silence : Pip holds onto the tombstone like he holds on the line of his ancestors to recount his life. The Church tard is both the starting point and the end of the adventure : we come back full circle.
Threat of death inherent : the pollards : beheaded trees / allow the growth of young branches : cf his own family tree truncated too for the younger branch to survive. The instinct of survival will indeed prove very strong in him.
Pip’s identity and existence are being challenged at the very moment when they are first “firmly” establishes.
By bringing deathly, – adults and awakening children together in violent encounters Dickens establishes initial negative predictions about the future of his child protagonists (David and Pip)
+ apparence d’assurance est d’emblée remise en question : he is a trembling, shivering bundle.
Hesitation
Oscillation in the text btw 2 narrative stances // Pip trembling, shaking, wavering in his account. World turned upside down (very impressionistic rendering of the church steeple). Impressions more prominent than certainty.
Wavering btw utopia and resignation / full expectations and grim reality / irony and objectivity.
Conciseness and vagueness : “seems” to : vs “found out for certain”
The marshes emblematic of the instability of any foundations (of life of a story..)
Impressionistic text cf p9 l19 “vivid impression of the identity of things”
Paradoxes that shape the text
Writing one’s own life : not a singular entreprise but an acknowledgement of a debut : acknowledging one’s memories // IOU cf l16 p9 : you are never born ex-nihilo you are the result for something you need to acknowledge your memories
I → “ours” l19 p9 → “village” l19 p10 : from self definition to the sense of belonging to a community you belong to
⇒ he will have to see which community he belongs to : sense of in betweenness
Contract btw the poised, older narrator, subtle, ironic and observing the young Pip from a distance and the young, terror-stricken lad who becomes self-aware at the same time as he becomes aware of the import of language.
Contrast between his”fancies” and the real world materialised by the appearance of Magwitch
⇒ Ambivalence btw fancy and memory. Idea that one looks back not so much at tone remembers but at things as they were in our fancy. Memory is a motley mixture of ideas, impressions, beliefs and fancies. Remembering : here equates dismemberment rather : having one’s throat cut.
