Great Expectaion & She - Essay Example

In realism, characterization and development of the character is more important than the plot or the setting. The characters move within their own personality, social class and past. The events happening around him are believable and one might think that the story must have a hint of truth in history. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and She by Rider Haggard are just two of the many novels that used realism to show reality and its possible connection to history and life. Both novels used realist devices to emphasize the possibility of the story to happen in real life.

The realist devices used in the novels gives the reader the feeling of actuality. The discussions or depictions of social class and societal problems and change give more truthfulness in the literature as the reader can somehow relate to the setting, the events and the characters described in the novel. Since literary realism depicts life and plausible events that may happen in the past and in the present, one device used to emphasize its connection to the real world is using first person narration.

Both Dickens and Haggard used this in their novels in which they describe what is happening through the eyes of the narrator. It is an effective tool as such characterization of the narrator emphasizes that he, as the narrator, saw everything that happened through his own eyes. The reader becomes closer to the main character through the use of first-person narration. It makes the reader almost see the narrator’s eyes looking outward and describing the events in the story. In Great Expectations, the use of ‘I’ makes the reader see more closely and identify with Pip, the main character of the story.

Dickens plunges the reader into the depths of thoughts of the narrator by allowing the reader to see through the eyes of the main character. The shift of the narrator’s perspective from telling his story through child eyes and through mature eyes, the shift from a