Magwitch and Max

Blog Post #4
Topic H
May 8th, 2015

            In this past section of reading, we learn who has been paying for Pip’s education for the majority of the novel. The mysterious benefactor turns out to be the convict Pip met in the marshes when he was a young boy. The example of an unforeseen character greatly impacting someone’s life in Great Expectation resembles a similar situation in The Book Thief. Both Markus Zusak and Charles Dickens use their unexpected character of Liesel and Magwitch to have a great impact on other characters. In The Book Thief, a little girl, Liesel, takes care of and develops a friendship with Max despite them being people from seemingly two different worlds. Liesel, a young German girl, is one of the most unlikely people to have made a friend with a Jewish man in Nazi Germany, but the two create an unbreakable bond. The relationship shapes both of their lives and contributes greatly to the novel. In connection with Great Expectations, Dickens writes of the convict who is paying for Pip to become a gentleman. Though he didn’t have much when the two first met, he has been helping Pip for years, a curveball that many readers don’t expect. Though at this point, Pip and Magwitch aren’t friends like Max and Liesel, but Magwitch’s contributes have completely altered Pip’s life. In both novels, the characters have significant relationships that affect them thought the rest of the book. In The Book Thief, Liesel and Max have a friendship that lasts a lifetime. Though Pip doesn’t agree, Magwitch sees himself as Pip’s “second father”, as he has greatly contributed and indirectly influenced to who Pip is today (309). The two sets of character relationships have an extremely effects on their lives; keeping Max alive and turning Pip into a gentleman.