The locations of the story are in London or on the marshes around Kent, near the junction of the Rivers Thames and Medway. These are areas that Dickens knew well. His happiest childhood years were spent in Chatham on the eastern coast. Nearby were marshes, the prison hulks, and convicts. Also, he lived in London for years and knew the back streets, markets, and places like Newgate Prison.
The sense of location in the novel is one of its strongest points. Dickens' imagery when describing area and place is powerful — as George Orwell suggests, his "power of evoking visual images . . . has probably never been equaled. When Dickens has once described something you see it for the rest of your life."
The story has a three-part structure similar to that of a play, which is fitting, given that Dickens was involved in the theater for many years, writing, producing, and acting in plays. The first part of the story covers Pip's childhood from the time he meets the convict in the graveyard until the time he receives his expectations; the second examines his young manhood, learning to become a gentleman and living extravagantly in London; and finally, the third part visits Pip in his adulthood, from the time he tries to help Magwitch escape until his return from Egypt at the end of the story. The three parts in this story have a moral implication as well as time and space implications. Pip's childhood is viewed as a time of innocence and goodness while living in the Garden of Eden. His young manhood is the fall from grace when he sins and must seek an end to his suffering, and his adulthood is seen as a time of redemption when he achieves forgiveness and inner peace.
