Effects and Consequences of Narration in Lloyd Jones' 'Mister Pip' on Matilda

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: First, the effects of narration in Matilda's childhood, mainly when Mr Watts reads the novel to the children in the classroom and she gets to know Pip, will be examined. The matters focussed on will be the way Matilda constantly compares herself to Pip, the protagonist of Dickens' Great Expectations, as well as how the embedding of the novel into her life influences the relationship she has to her parents and the way the impact of the novel changes when she becomes an adult will be analyzed. Here Matilda's efforts to define the concept of home and how her development in general is dependent on her engagement with Dickens and his work will be looked at. In a third part, now connecting the young girl on the island and the grown-up woman, an analysis on how Matilda utilises Great Expectations throughout her life in order to first try to protect herself from trauma and later on how she tries to heal her trauma, particularly by writing an autobiographical account of her life, will follow.