Commentary

1. So furious had been the gusts, …

Note the inverted word order in this sentence. This word order is usually resorted to to emphasize the idea expressed in a sentence or passage. To give the description an emotional colouring and to intensify the feeling of gloom and impending horrors Dickens uses in this passage some other stylistic devices besides inversion. They are: a specific choice of epithets pertaining to weather (wretched, stormy, wet), parallel constructions and reiteration.

Reiteration (repetition) is one of the basic figures of speech employed as a means of emphasis. In this passage the words “stormy and wet” and “mud” are reiterated to emphasize the wretchedness of the weather.

* …whiles you was a minor = while you were below the age of 21

** What odds…? = What does it matter…?

2. … heard the footstep stumble in coming on.

The above sentence may serve as an illustration of metonymy – one of the most significant tropes in which the name of the thing is put for that of another related to it. When the author says that Pip “heard the footstep stumble” he means that Pip heard somebody stumble on the stairs.

The use of metonymy here contributes to the atmosphere of growing suspense, for Pip’s imagination played a trick on him and he associated the sound with the footstep of his dead sister’s ghost.

3. “There is nothing the matter?”

Note the order of the words in this question. In colloquial English an interrogative sentence often has direct word order. In the majority of cases it implies the speaker’s assurance of getting an answer he expects or hopes for.

4. In the instant I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me.

In this sentence metonymy is used again (see note 2). The mention of the face instead of the man himself contributes towards a more colourful and emotional presentation of the scene, for it supplies some concrete details (a strange face looking somewhat mysterious in the little circle of light from Pip’s lamp) which enable the reader to better understand Pip’s growing anxiety and nervousness.

5. “…arter having looked for’ard so distant, and come so fur; but you’re not to blame for that – neither on us is to blame for that…”

This is one of many examples from the extract of the stranger’s uneducated dialectal speech abounding in all kinds of deviations from standard English: phonetic (“arter” for “after”, “fur” for “far”), grammatical (“you’ve grow’d up” for “you’ve grown up”, “I have never forgot it” for “I have never forgotten it”, “you was a saying” for “you were saying”, “wot” for “who” or “that”) and lexical (“nigh” for “near”, “on” for “of”, “alonger” for “along with”).

The juxtaposition of the convict’s uneducated speech and Pip’s fine phraseology contributes towards a realistic presentation of these two characters opposed to each other and gives a deeper insight into their psychology.