Understanding the point of view in Dickens's Great Expectations: the first-person narrator in a pivotal excerpt

Voice, perspective, and the power of being inside the scene

If you’ve ever said, “I felt like I was really there,” you know how a point of view can pull you into a story more deeply than a cool plot twist ever could. In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, the excerpt where the narrator is actually part of the action leans into a very direct, personal stance. The correct reading of that moment is: first-person point of view. The narrator speaks from inside the moment, not as someone standing apart and watching, but as someone who is saying, “Here I am, and this is what I’m doing, feeling, and about to do.” Let’s unpack what that means and why it matters for how we read and talk about literature—especially when you’re navigating the kinds of questions you’ll encounter in the PACT-style writing tasks.

First, a quick refresher on POV basics

• First-person: I, me, my. The narrator is a character in the story, sharing experiences and inner thoughts directly with you, the reader. The reader rides along with the narrator’s sensations, judgments, and memories.

• Third-person omniscient: An all-knowing narrator who can slip into any character’s head and reveal their private motives and thoughts—often with a broad view of the world the story inhabits.

• Third-person limited: A narrator who stays close to one character, revealing that character’s thoughts and feelings but not those of others.

• Second person: You, your. This is relatively rare in classic fiction but can show up in experimental or modern writing and in certain prompts or exercises.

When the excerpt in Great Expectations centers on Pip actively engaging with people and events, the first-person lens isn’t just a stylistic choice; it’s a practical one. We’re not being asked to step back and survey the scene from an external balcony. We’re invited to step into Pip’s shoes and sense the pressure, confusion, and wonder as he moves through his world.

The effect of first-person in this moment

• Intimacy and immediacy: Pip’s voice is a thread threaded through the scene. The “I” voice makes you feel the heat of a moment, the sting of a failed step, or the spark of a small discovery as if you’re right there beside him.

• Emotional clarity, not omniscience: Because the narration is filtered through Pip’s experiences and feelings, you get a direct line into his fears, hopes, and evolving self-image. You learn why he reacts the way he does, not because an unseen storyteller explains it, but because Pip reveals his own motives in his own words.

• Reliability and bias: First-person narration is wonderfully rich for interpretation—and also ripe for questioning. Pip’s recollections are shaped by youth, memory, pride, and later reflection. The reader learns to weigh Pip’s impressions against the facts of the scene and consider how memory might color what is remembered vividly and what is forgotten or glossed over.

• Human connection: The voice creates a bond. When Pip tells you “I did this,” you absorb the truth of his experience in a way that’s hard to replicate with a distant narrator. It’s the difference between a friend describing a moment and a distant observer narrating it.

What to look for when you read for this POV

Noticing first-person involvement is less about spotting a single pronoun and more about tracking how the narrator behaves in the moment.

• Pronoun cues: You’ll see “I” and “my” repeatedly, especially in scenes where the narrator is choosing a course of action, reacting to someone else, or explaining why a decision felt right or wrong.

• Action and reaction: The narrator is not a passive observer. They’re actively participating, which means you’re getting commentary that’s tied to physical or emotional moves on the scene.

• Personal boundaries of knowledge: The narrator will share what they know and what they don’t know, but they won’t drift into knowing the private thoughts of other characters unless those thoughts are filtered through the narrator’s experience.

• Voice and texture: The tone—whether curious, anxious, hopeful, or sardonic—shapes how you understand what’s happening. The voice itself becomes a clue to the narrator’s role within the action.

A helpful way to connect the dots: think like a detective, then a writer

Let me explain with a small mental exercise you can carry into your own reading and writing. When you encounter a passage, ask:

• Who is telling this part of the story? Is the speaker inside the scene or observing from some distance?

• What does the narrator reveal about their own feelings at that moment? Do they share insecurities, biases, or hopes?

• How does the internal perspective affect what the author allows us to know about other characters? Do we get their motives, or just the narrator’s read of them?

• If the narrator were to tell this moment again from a different angle, what might change? What would be left out?

In Great Expectations, those questions pull you toward Pip’s inner world without turning the scene into melodrama. The moment you recognize “I” in the action, you’re standing at the fulcrum where character development, mood, and narrative strategy meet.

What this means for reading comprehension in real assignments

If a prompt asks you to identify the point of view in an excerpt, a clean, reliable path to the answer is to surface the narratorial stance first. The simplest way to phrase it: the text uses a first-person perspective because the narrator participates in the events and speaks from a personal frame of reference. Then you can expand:

• How does Pip’s involvement color the description of events? Does his mood drive how he frames what happened?

• How does this perspective shape our understanding of Pip’s character at this moment? Do we learn more about his courage, his fear, or his longing?

• How might the scene feel different if told from another POV? For example, if a third-person narrator summarized the same moment, would we notice different details, or miss some of Pip’s inner pressures?

In writing about this, keep your focus tight but vivid. Name the POV, illustrate with a few concrete signals (the I-voice, the immediacy of action, Pip’s self-reflection), then discuss the narrative effect (emotional connection, reliability questions, character insight).

Bringing literary craft into your own words

There’s a natural link between spotting a first-person moment in Dickens and practicing similar moves in your own writing. Here are some practical tips you can try, without turning this into a tutorial for exam-style tasks:

• Start with the voice you want readers to feel. If you want your scene to feel intimate and tense, lean into a first-person perspective where the narrator’s body language, breath, and inner reactions shape what’s described.

• Let the narrator’s choices drive the scene. In a moment of action, focus on what the narrator decides to do—and what that choice reveals about who they are.

• Use memory with care. If your narrator is looking back on a past event, consider how hindsight colors the recollection. A small discrepancy between memory and fact can add depth or tension.

• Balance heart with clarity. The most effective first-person narration gives readers access to emotion without drowning the description in sentiment. A crisp sentence or two can anchor a moment, then a line of reflective thought can widen the lens.

A few practical examples, just to anchor the idea

• Instead of saying, “The gate creaked,” you might write, “I pressed the gate with a sigh and heard it groan, and in that sound I felt the weight of the moment.”

• To convey Pip’s anxiety in a scene, a short, sharp sentence like “I knew I was about to make a mistake” can land with more impact than a longer, more cerebral line.

• If you want to hint at a larger social world without dumping a lot of exposition, let Pip’s observations reveal it. He might note a class cue, a social gesture, or a look from a character, and your reader learns the context through his eyes.

A gentle reminder about nuance

The beauty of first-person narration is its accessibility. Readers aren’t given a tour with a captioned map; they’re invited to feel their way through the scene with the narrator. But this immediacy can also be a pitfall. The narrator’s voice is a filter. The same events can look very different when viewed through someone else’s eyes. That’s not a flaw—it's a feature. It invites readers to compare perspectives, to test what feels true, and to weigh how much weight a single voice should carry in a larger story.

Why this matters for readers today

Great Expectations isn’t just a relic of Victorian storytelling. Its approach to POV taps into a timeless question: whose truth matters in a story, and how does the narrator’s closeness shape that truth? For readers, the first-person moment in the action invites empathy—an understanding of Pip that grows as his world grows more complex. For writers, it offers a clear example of how you can use voice as a narrative engine, guiding readers through emotion, choice, and consequence with the smallest nudges of pronouns and memory.

If you’re learning to read with a careful eye, or crafting your own scenes with a confident voice, the Pip-centered moments in Dickens give you a practical model. The trick is not to imitate in a dull, mechanical way, but to absorb the core idea: when a narrator steps into the action, the lens tightens, the heart speaks, and the reader leans in a little closer.

A final thought to carry with you

Next time you encounter a passage from a story, pause on the voice before you even trace the plot. Ask: is this a narrator who is simply recounting, or is this a person who is living the moment with me? If you spot the “I” in the scene, you’re likely in first-person territory. And if the narrator’s involvement in the action colors what you understand about motive, fear, or hope, you’ve got a powerful example of how point of view works to draw a reader into a character’s journey.

So, next time you read a line like, “I did this, I felt that,” see it as more than a grammatical choice. It’s a doorway into the narrator’s heart and the story’s rhythm. That doorway is what makes Great Expectations resonate, and it’s a handy compass for any reader exploring narrative voice in literature. If you’re curious to explore more, try spotting those I and my phrases in other passages, and notice how the intensity of the moment shifts with the narrator’s presence. The more you notice, the sharper your sense of both story and craft becomes. And that’s a win for any reader or writer walking the path of the written word.