Great Expectations - Themes test questions - Edexcel

Read the following extract in which Pip thinks about the excuses he has made to himself not to visit Joe and Biddy. Then answer the questions which follow.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly folding up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!

Which of the themes of the novel is Dickens highlighting in this passage?

The older Pip who is narrating is able to look back at this mistake made by his younger self. What is this process known as?

Here Dickens uses a metaphor about fake money: 'That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture...' Why is this appropriate?

Read the following extract which describes the Hulks (the prison ships) as Magwitch is taken back to them after his recapture. Then answer the questions which follow.

The boat had returned, and his guard were ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, “Give way, you!” which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear.

Which of the themes of the novel is Dickens highlighting in this extract?

What does this description show the reader about how prisoners were treated at the time the novel was written?

What is Magwitch’s punishment for escaping from the prison ship?

Which key word in the extract links the description of the Hulks to Miss Havisham's home Satis House?

Read the following extract in which Pip thinks about his attitude towards his own life. Then answer the questions which follow.

And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I was clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the plain honest working life to which I was born, had nothing in it to be ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect and happiness.

Which of the themes of the novel is Dickens highlighting in this extract?

Dickens emphasises Pip's uncertainty about the theme of social class in the phrase 'fifty thousand-fold'. What literary device is Dickens using here?

Why was Dickens personally interested in the theme of social class?