Pip in Charles Dickens Great Expectations and Jem and...

Both Pip in Charles Dickens Great Expectations and Jem and Scout in Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird have deep fears in early childhood. How do the authors create these fears and vulnerabilities? Charles Dickens Great Expectations and Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird are two very different books. Great Expectations tells the story of a young boy growing up in Kent at the beginning of the 19th century, and To Kill a Mocking Bird centres around two children growing up in America in the 1930s. However, despite the obvious differences in the infant characters and the cultures in which they live, all of the children have deep fears, and both authors use devices to give the reader an insight into what the child†¦show more content†¦There is a similarity in the characters of Pip, Jem and Scout is that none of them have the traditional maternal figure. Pip is brought up by hand, by his abusive sister as his mother is dead. The Finch children are brought up by their black domestic helper Calpurnia, who Scout describes as being made up of angles and possessing hands as wide as bed-slats but twice as hard. Dickens builds up much pathos around the way in which Pip behaves. He is incessantly polite, irrespective of the circumstances that he is in. For example when he is confronted by a convict in the churchyard, he constantly refers to him as Sir and when leaving says Goo-good night, Sir. Although Pip is stuttering and obviously inwardly terrified he continues to be polite. This adds great pathos to the story, but also adds a level of humour, for which Dickens is well known. There is also a pathos surrounding Jem and Scout. They are two small children growing up in a world that is difficult to understand, their mother is dead, and their family is hated by many sectors of the community. Atticus is attempting to bring them up as respectable members of the society, but the two children do not understand his aspirations for them. Jem and Scout act in a way in which they hope they will please Atticus, but also act as