Compare And contrast the way in which Charles Dickens and Laurie Lee present chid hood, showing how far you consider the main characters typical children of their era.

Have a little read: ... Compare And contrast the way in which Charles Dickens and Laurie Lee present chid hood, showing how far you consider the main characters typical children of their era. The two books we have studied are Cider with Rosie and Great Expectations. Laurie Lee wrote cider with Rosie and Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations. Both these books were written in different periods Cider with Rosie is written in the 20th century (1959), Great Expectations written in the Victorian era 1860-1861. They are both based on the life of a boy and how he lived and grew in these times; both books also look at their upbringing and environments. Childhood is portrayed in many ways in both Great Expectations and Cider with Rosie. The ways in which the authors, Charles Dickens and Laurie Lee portray this are different and similar in many ways. By reading the Book Great Expectations we can see that Pip (the main character) is a small boy with a typical life for a child who lived in the Victorian era. We know that these times, children would have had a hard life, as families would have been somewhat larger than they are today. This would mean that a lot more domestic work needed to be done around the house. In a lot of the cases it was very likely for the mother to have been killed whilst giving birth or soon after birth due to lack of medication and little money to pay a doctor. Because Pip is narrating his story many years after the events of the novel take place, there are really two Pips in Great Expectations: Pip the narrator and Pip the character-the voice telling the story and the person acting it out. Dickens takes great care to distinguish the two Pips, the voice of Pip the narrator with perspective and maturity while also imparting how Pip the character feels about what is happening to him as it actually happens. This skilfully performed difference is perhaps best observed early in the book, when Pip the character is a child; here, Pip the narrator gently pokes fun at his younger self, but also enables us to see and feel the story through his eyes giving the reader a better understanding of the storyline. As a character, Pip's two most important traits are his immature, romantic idealism and his innately good conscience. On the one hand, Pip has a deep desire to improve himself and attain any possible advancement, whether educational, moral, or social. His longing to marry Estella and join the upper classes stems from the same idealistic