Courses on Great ExpectationsHow does Dickens engage the reader in "Great Expectations"? “Great Expectations” was written by Charles Dickens in the Victorian era, where gothic elements were highly appreciated by readers at that time. In the Victorian age, crimes were taken extremely seriously and any thief caught was taken to the Hulks (prisons). The title "Great Expectations" gives us the idea that the novel is about Pip's great hopes about life or future. "GreatExpectations" was serialized, where two chapters were released each week. To ensure that readers remained interested, Dickens used a variety of techniques and ended most chapters with cliffhangers. One technique that Dickens uses to engage the reader in this book is the Gothic setting. An example of a Gothic element is found in chapter one. “Ours was a marshy country (…) I discovered with certainty that this squalid place covered in nettles was the churchyard”. 'overgrown' suggests that the churchyard has been abandoned and untended. 'Nettles' is another Gothic element because nettles are unwanted weeds that don't look good. This further emphasizes the abandonment of the churchyard. Another technique that Dickens uses in 'Great Expectations' to engage the reader in this book is the strong characterization of each character. For example, at the beginning of chapter two, "My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery (...) had a hard and heavy hand, and was in the habit of imposing it on both her husband and me (...) She was tall and bony, and always wore a rough apron" The amount of detail written just describing a character in the novel gives the reader a good picture of what Mrs. Joe Gargery would have been like. This quote also contains a rhyme that makes it even more memorable. Dickens included dialogue from all the characters to engage the reader in “Great Expectations.” In chapter 7, Mrs. Joe says, "if this boy isn't grateful tonight, he never will be!". Dialogue makes the novel more interesting because it adds variety to it. Dickens included both first and third person throughout the story. If I tried to read a book written entirely in the third person, it would be boring. The dialogue also teaches us more about the characters and the way they speak. From the quote we can see that Mrs. Joe is speaking informally because she says "isn't" which is colloquial speech for "isn't". We learn more about the personalities of the characters when dialogue is included and this also makes the novel more interesting, so the reader is likely to continue reading..