The Problem of Magwitchs return in Great Expectations :: Great Expectations Essays

The Problem of Magwitchs interpret in Gr erase ExpectationsIt would be fair to say that Australias role in Great Expectations is fairly minimal. It precisely functions as a plot device a place to mystify Magwitch when he is no longer required and a place for him to return from when needed again to further the plot. With the rise in postcolonial studies, however, Australia and Magwitchs experiences there declare become the focal points for new drills of the novel. Thus it is finished a postcolonial reading of Great Expectations that the issue of Magwitchs return can be addressed. As I have already pointed out, Dickens uses Australia to get rid of Magwitch in the rootage place and then to have him return. This return I have evermore found to be problematic why does Magwitch come back low the threat of death? The answer to see Pip is not satisfactory. However, a postcolonial reading of the novel, I feel, offers a more plausible explanation.Magwitchs identity and status with admiration to the empire throughout the text is an important factor in his motivations for returning. In Postcolonial terms, he is seen through the eyes of the empire (and those of the reader) as other. Pips first confrontation marks him thus, firstly as a convict and then through the cannibal references when he threatens to eat Pips fat cheeks (3 GE) and threatens to have another convict eat his heart and liver. Due to Magwitchs otherness and subsequent inability to function in normative society, he, along with his heart eating fellow cannibal, is being transported, displaced and outside from the center of attention. the shipment of convicts to Australia was familiar to Dickens and, though never having gone there, he was a firm believer in its benefits for both the convicts and the imperial centre it was the solution for all social problems for England (Coral Lansbury, Charles Dickens and his Australia).It seems, for the Victorian reader at least, that no elaboration o n Magwitchs Australian life was needed other than that he obtained his freedom and gained financial success for his plans for Pip. This plot development would be only when plausible and unquestioned by Dickens readers. A convict could easily reform themselves socially as well as financially, particularly under pro-emancipist governor Lachlan Macquarie. And although a class system did exist in Australia, it was less hardened than in England and would have allowed for Magwitchs prosperity.