The 'form' of a text is its type and genre. Great Expectations is a novel (type) written in the Bildungsroman tradition (genre).
First-person viewpoint
Great Expectations follows Pip's journey from a poor childhood into privileged adulthood and looks at the power that money and social class have to change him as he grows up. As Charles Dickens uses a first-person narrative in this book, it is important to remember that the events that happen and all the other characters are seen through Pip's eyes and that this may affect our views of them. It is also written in past tense and with hindsight. This means that the reader and the narrator (an older, wiser Pip) both know more than the younger Pip who is experiencing the events of the novel read more...
