In the opening of Chapter 1, Dickens has the first-person narrator Philip Pirrip, whom we loving call Pip, describe his early situation in life. Much imagery is used effectively to (1) establish Pip's situation in life as an orphan, (2) give some understanding of Pip's innocent cast of mind, (3) establish Pip's detailed narratorial style:

The shape of the letters on my father's [grave], gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair ... I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. ... the memory of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief ... that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, ....

The images Dickens employs in the imagery in this passage are several:

• 1. The shape of the letters on the gravestone (visual).
• 2. The odd relationship between the letters and the paternal occupant of the grave (visual)
• 3. The relationship between the words and the mother's appearance, "freckled and sickly" (visual)
• 4. The impossible image of five boys born on their backs in trousers with hands in pockets! (visual)

These are all visual images; none employ sound, smell, etc. Later Pip speaks of a "raw afternoon" which is tactile imagery that conjures up a sense of what the weather felt like. It is interesting to note that the imagery Dickens employs is actually double, or embedded, imagery: Dickens provides the readers with imagery that is processed through Pip's own inner imagery based upon his vision of his parents graves and stones, both of which Pip describes to us.

Important literary devices in chapter 8 include satire, shifting the narrative point of view and foreshadowing.

In the opening portion of the chapter, Pip stays with his Uncle Pumblechook. This section satirizes, or makes fun of, the way the shopkeepers, including Pumblechook watch other people work, rather than work themselves:

Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist.

This section also satirizes the insensitivity of Uncle Pumblechook, who eats a fine breakfast himself while the hungry Pip is given a piece of bread with a tiny bit of milk. Pumblechook then quizzes Pip on math before he can even get a bite of food into his mouth. Dickens disliked the kind of petty cruelties that children were subjected to by people like Pumblechook:

I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the breakfast. "Seven?" "And four?" "And eight?" "And six?" "And two?" "And ten?" And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.

At Miss Havisham's, Dickens is famous for moving back and forth between narrating the scene through the child Pip's eyes as he moves closer and closer to Miss Havisham and the older Pip's mature reflection on the scene. The younger Pip sees, "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" while the adult Pip thinks back and writes, "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."

Finally, as Estella is called in to play cards with Pip, foreshadowing occurs: Miss Havisham tells Estella to break Pip's heart, and she also tells Estella to "beggar him" at cards. Estella will break Pip's heart and beggar him. 

While a poignant at the end, Chapter 27 exemplifies Dickens's satiric humor in Joe's London visit to Pip at Barnard's Inn and the absurdity of the situation.  As the chapter begins, Pip reads a letter from Biddy that contains figures of speech, especially

Metaphors (unstated comparisons)

"the light of a liberty" - [Biddy hopes that Pip does not think Joe is too bold in asking to come and visit him in London now that Pip is a "gentleman."]

"the love of poor old days" - This expression is a metaphor for the days when Pip and Joe had a loving father/son relationship.

 "a good heart" - This is a comparison of Joe's nature

"wrestles with Barnard" - A metaphor for Pip's efforts to make his apartment attractive, an effort that usually fails.

In the following passage, there are several metaphors: 1. Pip compares his debt to "occupying pages"; 2. he has been so spendthrigt that he hired a servant; 3. Pip is dominated by the servant instead; 4. the servant is compared to a monster;5. the servant boy is compared to "the refuse..."; and 6. the servant is likened to a gothic figure:

I enjoyed the honour of 1.occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring upholsterer. I had 2.got on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy in boots...3.in bondage and slavery to whom I might be said to pass my days. For, after I had made 4.the monster (out of 5.the refuse of my washerwoman's family) ....and with both of these horrible requirements 6.he haunted my existence.

"This avenging phantom" is another unstated comparison to the servant.

‘Ceptin’ Wopsle; he's had a drop.”- Wopsle has fallen in social level.

“and I believe its character do stand i'; but I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself—not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him.”  - Speaking of Barnard's Inn, Joe compares it to a pig sty. 

"... the bird's-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an egg with his right" - Pip describes Joe's hat, comparing it to a bird's nest.

Similes (stated comparisons using as or like)

"Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak giant of a Sweep."

:...he caught both my hands and worked them straight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump."

"But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird's-nest with eggs in it..."

Satire (humor that ridicules) that provides comic relief

"as it is there drawd too architectooralooral.” -  Dickens pokes fun of Joe's attempts to sound learned.

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping

  - In this passage, Dickens humorously describes Joe's awkwardness and satirizes the absurdity of the situation of Joe's visit that mortifies the snobbish Pip.

Visual Imagery

You won't find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand [alliteration with repetiition of /h/], or even my pipe

Allusions (famous references)

"Roscian…National Bard…” [Shakespeare]

 Blacking Ware'us             

[the blacking warehouse where Dickens worked as a boy]

 Chorus - [an allusion to Greek plays that had a chorus of speakers who commented on the action]

After encountering Magwitch in Chapter 39, Pip is faced with the dilemma of what to do for him.  He decides to tell people that his Uncle Provis has come to visit him and hide him.  And, although Pip does not have the Avenger with him, there is a woman and her niece who are exceedingly curious, snooping constantly on him.

I had no Avenger in my service now, but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an animated rag-bag (metaphor) whom she called her niece; and to keep a room secret from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration.

After Pip trips over someone on the stairs, he runs to the Watchman and asks him to bring his lantern so that they can find who it is. Pip narrates,

The watchman made more light of the matter (figure of speech)

meaning that the watchman does not think that there is anything to worry about.  Later Pip sits before the fire:

 I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare (light and sensory imagery)

As Pip considers his situation, he narrates,

As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an elephant. (simile)

In the morning, the old woman and

her niece came in—the latter with a head not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom (metaphor)

When Provis awakens and comes into Pip's front room, Pip asks him questions and feeds him.  As Pip watches he thinks that Provis

looked terribly like a hungry old dog. (simile)

Provis then gets out his pipe

he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket were a drawer. (simile)

Another description of Provis uses imagery:

his furrowed bald head with its iron grey hair at the sides. (tactile and visual imagery)

Provis compares himself to a bird:

As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm not afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow (metaphor)

and his bald head tattooed with deep wrinkles (metaphor,imagery) falling forward on his breast

In another description of Provis in Chapter 41, Pip narrates,

He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. (metaphors) 

Dickens uses a number of literary devices in chapter 41. First, he opens the chapter with narration, meant to set the scene and provide a context for the dialogue that follows. Narration is a literary device that tells a story, and here Dickens tells us that Herbert and Provis (Magwitch) are sitting in front of a fire, and Herbert is hearing the whole tale of Magwitch as benefactor. It isn't necessary for Dickens to retell that saga to the reader, so he simply states that Herbert heard it.

Dialogue is another literary device Dickens uses. It brings readers into a scene more immediately than narration, allowing them to "eavesdrop" on what is happening rather than hearing about it secondhand. This device also helps Dickens characterize the different figures. Magwitch, for instance, uses a more lowly dialect than the more polished Pip or Herbert. Magwitch (Provis) says "look'ee here" and "fur" for the word "for," as well as "ye" to refer to the two young men. This is a way of speaking that shows Magwitch's humble roots, which is not how the other two speak. Likewise, Dickens uses dialogue to show the friendship and affection between Pip and Herbert. Herbert calls Pip by the nickname "Handel" and Pip calls Herbert "dear old boy." These are the kinds of terms that would most likely get left out of a narrative summation of the scene.

The narrator uses simile, which is a comparison employing the words "like" or "as", to describe the methodical way Provis thinks: "as if it were all put down for him on a slate." This helps us understand that Provis has an organized mind.

Dickens uses the literary device of exclamation, emphasizing Pip's state of emotion, by using exclamation points in two places in the following passage. We hear Pip rise to an emotional crescendo by the end of the statement:

“There, again!” said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. “I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood!”

Dickens employs repetition to emphasize that Pip has awoken, not just from sleep but from the darkness of unknowing, by repeating "woke" twice, and likewise, he repeats "fear" twice in the following passage, to emphasize the fear Pip has awoken to:

[I]woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned transport. Waking, I never lost that fear.

Dickens is famous for description, and he uses it below, as well as ending the chapter on a cliffhanger, a device that keeps us reading:

He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and said what follows.

Magwitch is revealed to be a round character as we get to know his backstory in this chapter. In the first chapter, he seemed only to be a vicious, scary criminal, but here, he is shown to be a man of far more dimension and feeling.

The reveal that Compeyson was the man who jilted Miss Havisham could be seen as a device of melodrama, since it is a sensational twist and one that is highly emotional.

Magwitch's dialogue has a heavy dialect to it. Dickens transcribes his words the way they sound coming out of his mouth, and they reflect Magwitch's education and class status. For example, he usually uses "wi'" instead of "with," or "afore" instead of "before." This device enriches Magwitch's characterization and makes him come alive for the reader.

In chapter 42 Dickens employs devices such as similes, imagery, alliteration, consonance, and repetition. Many of his main points are explained through dialogue between Magwitch, Pip, and Herbert, as Magwitch explains his life story to young Pip.

Similes: comparisons using like or as

• “I’ve been locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle”
• “I got acquainted wi’ a man whose skull I’d crack wi’ this poker, like the claw of a lobster”

Imagery: descriptive language dealing with the five senses (often used as visual imagery)

• “When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pocket handkercher”

Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds

• “Plan Plainer” (of “p”)
• “the counselor for Compeyson” (of “c”)
• “spoke to as such” (of “s”)
• “wiolent passion, likely to come to worse?” (of “w”)

Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds within sentences

• “Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book, --this here little black book, dear boy.” (repetition of “s”)

Repetition: the repeated use of words or phrases

• Magwitch repeatedly calling Pip “dear boy”
• “but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off, or took him up. Took up, took up, took up”
• “Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head . . . they had better a measured my stomach”
• “a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don’t pay and lead to trouble”
• “looks at me very noticing, and I look at him”
• “Same place. I went to Compeyson next night, same place . . . Compeyson’s business in which we was to go pardners? Compeyson’s business was the swindling . . . All sorts of traps was Compeyson’s business”
• “So Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor”
• "Warn’t it him as had been know’d by witnesses . . . And warn’t it me as had been tried before[?] . . . warn’t it Compeyson as could speak to ‘em . . .  and warn't it me as could only say”
• “She’s got the shroud again. She’s unfolding it. She’s coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed”

The large amount of repetition allows Dickens to emphasize the importance of certain ideas. Many of the uses of repetition come from Magwitch in this chapter, as he emphasizes the many tragedies and injustices that he has faced throughout his life. This allows him to encourage sympathy, not only from Pip, but also from the reader. Additionally, the repetition seemingly speeds up the reading, adding rhythm to the story and giving it an almost song-like quality.

Imagery
When Pip narrates his walk with Mr. Jaggers to Little Britain, he uses language that appeals to readers' senses to allow them to picture the scene as if they were there. He particularly emphasizes what Little Britain looks like when he says:

...while the lights were springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamplighters, scarcely finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon’s bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out...

Simile
A simile compares two things using words such as "like" and "as." Pip compares the effect of the shadows of the fire falling on two objects to a children's game:

As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers’s fire, its rising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me.

This is also an example of irony, because we do not expect a children's game to be labeled as "diabolical," a word that implies evil. The overall effect of these two literary devices is humor.

Metaphor
A metaphor also compares two things, but it does not use "like" or "as." One thing is directly said to be another, though it cannot be literally true. For example, "the girl is a ray of sun in my life" would mean that this girl brings joy to the speaker. Chapter 48 contains a metaphor. Pip recalls something Mr. Jaggers has said about a woman: "A wild beast tamed, you called her." The woman in question is not actually a wild beast, but she must demonstrate the characteristics or qualities of one.

Here's an example from Chapter 49:

Simile
I will quote a passage and then analyze the simile.

The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves.

Pip passes a monastery that has fallen into decay, and he notes that the physical spaces, or the "nooks of ruin," are empty and quiet. He compares the stillness of these physical spaces to the stillness of the monks in their graves. By linking the two, he emphasizes the idea that the monastery has fallen out of use and is decaying because of it, as those who used it are dead.

There are many more examples of literary devices in these chapters, but hopefully these few will get you started.

Brillantly written, Charles Dickens's Great Expectations is replete with literary techniques:

1.  parallelism - Notice how the sentences in this paragraph from Chapter 1 are similar in structure:

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.

2. imagery In the above passage, there is also much sensory language, or imagery. Imagery of crime and criminal justice pervade the novel. Miss Havisham's house, for example, is like a prison as is Mr. Jaggers dark office.

3. simile In Chapter 3, Pip describes his return to the Battery where he cannot keep his feet warm, comparing the cold to the iron using as,

...the damp cold seemed riveted as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet.

4. metaphor In an unstated comparison, Pip calls Uncle Pumblechook "an abject hypocrite," and "the basest of swindlers" (Ch. 13)

5.doppelgangers, or doubles. Magwitch and Compeyson appear in the novel together several times. Magwitch is of the streets; Compeyson, upper class. In Chapter 3 Pip says

...this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man was

Likewise, Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham are two women who are seemingly tied to their houses, they treat Pip cruelly, and become invalids.

6. fairy tale structure Pip begins as a poor boy and is aided by an odd fair godmother who seemingly elevates Pip to status of gentleman.

7. Biblical allusions Pip is a prodigal son, who leaves home, rejecting all that is connected to it.  Once, however, he is financially ruined and desolate, he returns home, begging  forgiveness of his father-figure, Joe Gargery

8. symbols The leg-iron of the convict is alluded to several times, and it symbolizes Pip's feelings of guilt.  For instance, after his sister dies and Pip returns to the forge, the filed off leg-iron of the old convict is found and suspected of being the murder weapon, increasing Pip's feelings of guilt. (Ch.16).

9. satire Chapters 22 and 23 contain descriptions of Mrs. Pocket, a silly woman who aspires to become an aristocrat. She sits engrossed in a book about titles while her children dangerously spill about her:

whenever any of the children strayed near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and tumbled over her—always very much to her momentary astonishment, and their own more enduring lamentation..... until by-and-bye Millers came down with the Baby, which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself. (22)

10. comic relief and comic irony The pompous Uncle Pumblechook chokes giving his Christmas speech because Pip put tar water to replace the wine (Ch.4).  In Ch. 23 Dickens describes the Pockets with comic tones while commenting on the pitiable state of Mr. Pocket:

Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one.

This book, like all Dickens books, is full of figures of speech.  There is one in the very beginning of the book:

“I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone .” (chapter 1)

By saying “on the authority of his tombstone” Pip means that he never knew his father, and can only give that name because it is on his father’s tombstone.  He goes on to say that he does not even have any pictures of his parents or siblings, and doesn’t know what they looked like.  “Pip” is a figure of speech as well, because a pip is short for pippin, which is used to describe something excellent.  Pip is to become excellent, but never quite gets there, making the name symbolic as well.

Another example of a figure of speech in the first chapter is Pip’s sister Mrs. Joe’s saying she raised him “by hand” on her own.  This makes it sound like she took a personal approach in raising him, but it means that she beat him whenever she could.  Pip notes:

“Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.” (Chapter 2)

Pip goes on to say that he assumes that she made Joe marry her by hand, because he can’t see how she could marry any other way.

When Pip returns from his encounter with Magwitch in Chapter 2, Joe tells him:

“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen.”

This is another figure of speech still common today.  A dozen is twelve, and a baker’s dozen is thirteen.

One of the most famous repeated figures of speech is the reference to being "brought up by hand," as in Pip's narration from chapter 8 below:

I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks.

This figure of speech means that Mrs. Joe beat Pip anytime he did something wrong so that he would be well-behaved. This is a symbol, as the book continues as abused is repeatedly doled out to Pip by Estella as he gets older, but this is more of a verbal and emotional abuse. Symbols are indeed a type of metaphor, so you could call it either and one phrase "by hand" represents another... abuse. You could also call it a euphemism because the phrase "by hand" is a much gentler term that saying the boy is beaten or hit or abused.

Another sentence from chapter 17 expresses several figures of speech worth analyzing:

So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped time in that mysterious place...

In the italicized portion of this quote describing Miss Havisham's bride room, we have parallel structure or parallelism which is the repetition of the same grammatical form. Each phrase separated by commas begins with the and then an adjective, and a noun, and a prepositional phrase.

In the bold portion, the contents of a simile exist but there is also paradox present in the idea of time stopping. Time is incapable of stopping.