By reading the novel the reader becomes aware of the Victorian unfair Justice regarding poor people but advantageous towards the rich and educated middle class.
Crime and Punishment is an important theme in Great Expectations and Dicken's uses the character of Magwitch to highlight his concerns with the criminal Justice system. Magwitch, frightens Pip at first because he is a convict and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the novel, however Pip has discovered Magwitch's inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch's inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal value. The character Magwitch is not only powerful in itself but it shows us what Dicken's thought about crime. Dicken's was trying to find the good in even the darkest of characters.
In chapter one, Dickens uses metaphors and similes to describe the setting and atmosphere. Pip describes it as a "memorable raw afternoon" the use of raw gives us a sense of cold and harsh. He goes on to describe it, as "this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard." The use of bleak shows a dull, dark place and nettles gives an impression of sharp and stinging. He describes the marshes as "the dark flat wilderness" giving an idea of it being wild and harsh. He describes the river as a "low leaden line." It's grey looking, and he describes the sea as "the distant savage lair" he's describing it as if its frightening and horrible. He describes himself as a "small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all." He's cold and lonely and he's getting more and more frightened. Dickens also creates pathetic fallacy using weather to show emotions- the dark, bleak, dull looking place all adds to the tension of the atmosphere and prepares the reader for Magwitch.
