How Gothic depicted in 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens

There are many Gothic elements appear in Dickens's novel 'Great Expectations'. On below, I have analysed and explained how Gothic depicted in 'Great Expectations'.

 

1.Magwitch

'A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter I)
 
In chapter 1, the open scene starts with the appear of Magwitch who scares Pip and shouting at him. He was described by Pip as a scary person, like Miss Havisham who later appears in the novel as well.  They were described as the grotesque and it is a gothic motif which depict an ugly, unnatural appearance of  a character. I think the word uncanny and transformation are best to describe Magwitch as he appeared in the opening scene and scare Pip, but when the storyline went on and during the climax, Pip realized Magwitch was his benefactor. 

2. The Satis House
'Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a court-yard in front, and that was barred; so, we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. Pumblechook said, "And fourteen?" but I pretended not to hear him), and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long time.'
 
'My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the court-yard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond, stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter VIII)

On above are two descriptions  by Pip of the outlook of Satis House and also how Dickens build tension in the novel by describing the Satis House.
 
In here, Pip described the passages were dark and Estella just using one candle light to led him to Miss Havisham's room.
'We went into the house by a side door - the great front entrance had two chains across it outside - and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter VIII)
 
On below are the descriptions by Pip of Miss Havisham's room.
'This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.'

'her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter VIII)
 
The way Dickens used Pip to describe the Satis House is a way to build and add more tension and spooky feelings to the novel. It makes the audience to imagine what Satis House was like when reading it ( a dark, scary, uncanny, decayed house, full of anger and anguish ) and this links to the Gothic literature.

 

On below is what Pip thought about the visit in Miss Havisham's house and as Satis House was full of darkness, he didn't realized what time it meant to be.

'I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room many hours.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter VIII)

3. Miss Havisham
'Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.'
 

'She was dressed in rich materials - satins, and lace, and silks - all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on - the other was on the table near her hand - her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.'

 

'It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.'

 

 'I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed from could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud.

So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing then, of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly seen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as if the admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust.' (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter VIII)

On above are Pip descriptions of the first time he met Miss Havisham and he thought she is the strangest lady that he ever met. Throughout Pip descriptions of Miss Havisham, you can imagine what she was like and she seems quite scary as well. Also, you will be thinking why she was like that and what has happened to her in the past. The way Pip thought he 'should have cried out' suggest to the audience that how fear he was towards Miss Havisham.
 

4. Dealths
One of the Gothic elements involves deaths and in 'Great Expectations', there were Miss Havisham,  Mrs Joe and also Magwitch's death.

Book reference:
Charles Dickens (2002), Great Expectations, Penguin Classics, Revised edition.