"Mister Pip," by Lloyd Jones, is a novel about a young girl named Matilda who lives surrounded by war on the isolated island of Bougainville. Matilda, along with all of the inhabitants of Bougainville, anxiously watch the escalating conflict between the rebels otherwise known as "rambos" and the government forces known as the "redskins." Matilda attends school where Mr. Watts, the only white man in Bougainville, reads them the novel "Great Expectations," by Charles Dickens which she uses as an escape from her life on the island. Conditions on the island become increasingly violent and eventually lead to Matilda's mother and Mr. Watts's death. She first reacts to their deaths very calmly but when the weight of what has happened starts to take a toll on her well being, Matilda uses Pip, a character in "Great Expectations," to find her will to live. Jones uses the point of view to display how constant exposure affects people and the psychological damage it can inflict on the survivors. Through the child's voice of Matilda, Jones illustrates that the isolating and brutal aspects of war can be normalized but will only result in long term trauma. .
Matilda demonstrates the isolation the islanders feel along with the fear and constant threat of war they endure. In Bougainville, the islanders are extremely cut off from the outside world. The villagers are "surrounded by sea, and while the redskins' gunboats [patrol] the coastline helicopters [fly] overhead" (Jones 99). The islanders are extremely isolated from the outside, all they know is the life they have experienced with the redskins with their gunboats and helicopters. This constant exposure causes the villagers to be constantly on the lookout for signs of an attack. Matilda recounts that "the next morning we woke to the helicopters again. My mum bent over me, her face pinched with panic. She was yelling at me to hurry" (39) and also that they are "left with fear [and don't] know what to do with it" (37).
