Wherein The Dickens Chronological Reading Club wraps up Weeks 3 & 4 of Great Expectations, our 22nd read; with a chapter summary, discussion wrap-up, and a look-ahead to weeks 5 & 6, our final weeks.
(Banner Image: Artist unknown. Email Rach for attribution.)
by the members of the #DickensClub, edited/compiled by Rach
Warm welcome to our final weeks with Great Expectations, Friends! We’ve had a big reveal at the end of our last section, and much still to come.
We’ve had a quieter discussion for this novel, as we have several members who are unable to join in. See Rach’s note in the General Mems for more info.
But first, a few quick links:
- General Mems
- Great Expectations, Chs 22-42: A Summary
- Discussion Wrap-Up (Weeks 3-4)
- A Look-Ahead to Weeks 5 & 6 of Great Expectations (9-22 April, 2024)
General Mems
Friends, we have several members unable to join in right now. For others, perhaps nearing the end of the Dickens Chronological Reading Club is somewhat akin to the final months in one’s senior year of high school? Whatever the case, we hope to see our members back for Our Mutual Friend at the end of May!
I responded to the Stationmater’s regret at the quieter participation:
SAVE THE DATE: We will have our Zoom chat on Great Expectations on Saturday, 4 May, 2024! 11am Pacific (US)/2pm Eastern (US)/7pm GMT (London). It is an informal chat with no set agenda; feel free to bring a favorite passage or topic to discuss! The Zoom link will be sent out prior to the chat; please feel free to message Rach here on the site or on twitter if you’d like the link.
If you’re counting, today is Day 826 (and week 119) in our #DickensClub! This week and next, we’ll be continuing with Great Expectations, our twenty-second read as a group. Please feel free to comment below this post for the final weeks’s chapters or use the hashtag #DickensClub if you’re commenting on twitter. For a link to Boze’s marvelous introduction to Great Expectations and The Uncommercial Traveller, click here. Chris shared some wonderful supplemental materials, which can be found here.
No matter where you’re at in the reading process, a huge “thank you” for reading along with us. Heartfelt thanks to our dear Dickens Fellowship, The Dickens Society, and the Charles Dickens Letters Project for retweets, and to all those liking, sharing, and encouraging our Club, including Gina Dalfonzo, Dr. Christian Lehmann and Dr. Pete Orford. Huge “thank you” also to The Circumlocution Office (on twitter also!) for providing such a marvellous online resource for us.
And for any more recent members or for those who might be interested in joining: the revised two-and-a-half year reading schedule can be found here. If you’ve been reading along with us but aren’t yet on the Member List, we would love to add you! Please feel free to message Rach here on the site, or on twitter.
Great Expectations, Chs 22-42: A Summary
(Illustrated by Marcus Stone for the “Library Edition” of 1862. Images below are from the Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery.)
“The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing.”
Pip and Herbert Pocket spend time getting reacquainted. Herbert calls Pip “Handel,” because of the tune of “The Harmonious Blacksmith.” Herbert fills in a lot of gaps in Pip’s knowledge about Miss Havisham, whose mother died when she was a baby, and that the adopted Estella has been raised to wreak vengeance on the male portion of humankind. Miss Havisham had an irresponsible step-brother, and then the man who abandoned her on her wedding day had scammed Miss Havisham out of a good deal of money, which he said was for the purposes of helping out the step-brother’s business. At her abandonment, she had the clocks stopped and allowed the house to fall into ruin. Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father, had warned Miss Havisham against this man. Miss Havisham trusts Jaggers, who also knows Matthew Pocket.
Herbert is one of eight children. He is a clerk at a shipping merchant’s, and hopes one day to rise in the business. When Pip meets his new tutor—Matthew Pocket—and the family, he finds it in something of a chaotic state, as Mrs Pocket cannot control her servants and neglects her children. Both Mr and Mrs Pocket seem to have had prospects in life which were ruined by marriage to one another. Matthew becomes a trusted tutor for Pip, and Pip goes to the enigmatic Jaggers—who has death masks of several of his notorious clients in his office—to request money for furniture at his lodgings in Barnard’s Inn. Wemmick accompanies Pip to court, to watch Jaggers, who intimidates everyone, and is very good at what he does.
Through Matthew Pocket, Pip meets several other characters, including the former’s cousin and sister, Georgiana and Camilla. Pocket is also a tutor to the thick-headed Bentley Drummle, and Startop.
At Wemmick’s home, nicknamed “the Castle” because of its tiny drawbridge and cannon which Wemmick has contrived for it, Pip finds everything full of comfort for Wemmick’s father, who cannot hear almost anything. Wemmick is the personification of keeping work and home life separate—he is almost a completely different person at each, and virtually shuts down as he returns to the office the following day.
“Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger.”
In contrast, Jaggers, always smelling of soap and washing his hands, invites Pip to dine with him at his house, where a single housekeeper appears to have been utterly tamed by Jaggers, and is in terror of him. She unwillingly shows Pip her wrists at Jaggers’ order—strong wrists. They talk of Drummle—who eventually leaves the home of the Pockets, to Pip’s relief—whom Jaggers seems to like, but calls “Spider” and warns Pip off of. Jaggers has a knack for finding anyone’s weakness.
Pip learns in a letter from Biddy that he is talked of every night; also, that Joe will be making a visit to London with Mr Wopsle, the latter having gone into acting and who will be in a production of Hamlet. Pip is made uncomfortable and ashamed about the prospect of seeing his old friend and protector in Pip’s changed circumstances, and hates the idea of Bentley Drummle’s seeing him with Joe.
“Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s coming.
Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.”
Joe is clearly uncomfortable around Pip, too, and the latter’s irritability with his discomfort makes it worse. Joe considers that he had better stay at his forge, and does not stay for dinner, but he lets Pip know that he is there in part as a messenger for Pumblechook, who says that Miss Havisham wishes to see him, and that Estella is home for a time.
“I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets; but he was gone.”
Pip visits Miss Havisham on the following day, finding that there are two convicts in the same coach on the journey—one of whom he recognizes from having seen at The Jolly Bargemen.
At Miss Havisham’s, Pip imagines the future that she has planned for him—as he believes her to be his patroness, and that Estella is intended for him. Orlick is there as porter, having left the forge. Pip and Estella talk, and the latter considers that Pip’s old companions are not worthy of him, which prompts Pip to decide not to visit Joe while he is here. Estella confesses that she does not know what love is; she has never been taught to love or to recognize love. They all dine together that night, and Mr Jaggers is included in the party. Jaggers suggests that Orlick is not suitable for Miss Havisham, and will pay him off to leave her service. In town, Pip is mocked by Trabb’s boy, and Pip writes a letter of complaint to the employer. Pip sends an apology to Joe for not visiting; he is afraid Estella would look down on him.
“I never thought there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemptuous of him.”
Herbert advises Pip to keep clear of Estella, who cannot make him happy. Pip and Herbert go to Wopsle’s play; there, they find that Wopsle is not yet off book, and all the actors are mocked by the audience as everything is at sixes and sevens with the acting and the props.
“Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the question whether ’twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said ‘Toss up for it;’ and quite a Debating Society arose.”
They end up not being able to avoid meeting with Wopsle, and Pip takes him to supper.
Pip awaits a visit to London from Estella, and Pip is to help her to reach her destination where she will be introduced into society. First, however, PIp accompanies Wemmick to Newgate where the latter is to meet with a client. Pip feels the taint of the prison on him, and regrets it, as he is about to meet with Estella.
Estella appears to have a friendlier demeanour, but Pip feels that she is toying with him and doesn’t really care for him.
“As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good.”
Pip begins to feel the downside of the fortune that has come to him, and he knows that his unkindness to Joe and Biddy are resulting from it, as well as the effect on Herbert, who is spending far more than he can afford, due to Pip’s influence. Their debts increase. Then, Pip receives news of his sister’s death.
Pip comes for the funeral—Mrs Joe had died suddenly, comforted by Joe at the end when she cried out for him—and stays with Joe, who is still uncomfortable around him. There is tension between Pip and Biddy, as he unfairly reproaches her, all while feeling the subtle reproach from her due to his own sense of guilt.
Back in London, Jaggers, after discussing Pip’s debts, makes it known that he has five hundred pounds to use as he will until Pip’s benefactor makes him/herself known. With some of it, Pip wishes to help Herbert in secret; Wemmick says it will do no good, but that that is only his “office” opinion; his home opinion might be different.
At Wemmick’s home, where Pip keeps company with the Aged parent and Miss Skiffins (Wemmick’s sweetheart, as it seems), Pip also plans how to help Herbert, who has run into debt because of Pip’s influence. He uses a part of his fortune to have a merchant hire Herbert on, and Herbert, not knowing of Pip’s involvement in it all, is thrilled at his change in circumstance.
Pip is obsessed with Estella, though he isn’t happy around her. Estella tries to warn Pip against herself. Miss Havisham takes a sadistic pleasure in the effect Estella is having on him. But Miss Havisham hates any coldness towards herself from Estella, though the latter argues that if she is cold, it is Miss Havisham who has trained her to be so. They quarrel.
“‘You should know,’ said Estella. ‘I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.’
‘O, look at her, look at her!’ cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; ‘Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!’”
Then, Pip is troubled by evidence that Bentley Drummle knows and fancies Estella, and Pip chides her for encouraging him, and that he is unworthy of her; yet the fact that she does so is a tiny instance of Estella’s care for Pip, insofar as she is capable of care, because she won’t entrap Pip the way she will Drummle.
Meanwhile, time passes, and Herbert is away on an extended period for his business. Pip, now twenty-three, is visited by a man who looks as though he owns the place and Pip too, and who seems to expect a reception in kind, but Pip reacts harshly to his friendly and proprietary attitude. Eventually, Pip realizes that this is the convict whom Pip had helped as a child. To Pip’s shock and horror, he comes to realize, due to the man’s knowledge of Pip’s situation and guardianship and Jaggers, that the convict himself is the benefactor of all of Pip’s fortunes and expectations. The convict sees himself as a kind of second father to Pip, whom he meant to reward for his kindness in that early time, by making him a gentleman once he had made his fortunes abroad. The convict, Abel Magwitch, is going by the name of Provis, and Pip tells the landlord that Provis is his uncle who has come for a visit.
“‘Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman,—and, Pip, you’re him!’”
Magwitch has risked everything to return. He doubts whether anyone will profit by taking him into custody, and that others have been able to live out their lives with their identities unknown, but he will risk discovery in order to see his gentleman make his way successfully in the world. Pip makes some purchases for Magwitch and finds him lodgings. Pip questions Jaggers simply for confirmation, and the latter is able to confirm the identity of the benefactor without implicating himself in any guilty knowledge. Herbert returns from abroad and is told the secret, and Magwitch makes him swear upon a small bible he keeps with him, to keep the secret.
Pip takes counsel with Herbert. Pip had felt tempted to go into the army and find a way to repay his debt to Magwitch, but Herbert says that a soldier’s salary will never do the trick, and would only destroy all the hopes of this man who had risked all to make him a gentleman. He advises Pip to take Magwitch abroad.
Magwitch then tells his own story, and how he got mixed up with the other convict whom he had fought in the marshes. The other convict’s name is Compeyson, and he is a gentleman. The two of them—along with a third man named Arthur—had been involved in swindling and forgeries, and Compeyson swindled them, too. Magwitch was ever in his debt, because of Compeyson’s cunning. Arthur had died due to fear of ghostly visions of a ghostly bride who was out to get him. Meanwhile, Compeyson, with his smooth talk and gentlemanly airs, got a far lighter sentence once the two were captured, and once they were retaken after having tried to escape. Magwitch swore vengeance.
Later, Herbert puts two and two together because of Magwitch’s story: Arthur was Miss Havisham’s brother, and Compeyson the lover who abandoned her on their wedding day.
Discussion Wrap-Up (Weeks 3-4)
Miscellany; What We Loved: Herbert’s “Rules of Gentility,” Wopsle’s Hamlet; Dickens and the Theater
Chris is in the midst of travels, but is finding our mutual friends everywhere she goes:
And Boze and I are overwhelmed by this gorgeous gift from our dear Dickensian friend & encourager, Dr Christian:
The Stationmaster discusses the “commentary on the arbitrary rules of gentility from Herbert”:
And isn’t Dickens at some of his best comic moments when it concerns the theater? Here, the Stationmaster discusses Wopsle’s doomed Hamlet:
Dickens’s Writing Lab: Characterization, Foils, Doubling, and Dickensian Parallels
There is a great cast of side characters–almost, memorable “walk-ons”–in Great Expectations:
And more “doubling,” from Pip and Herbert, to our continued discussion on Mrs Joe and Miss Havisham:
Character Spotlight: Estella and her Dickensian “Sisters”
The Stationmaster discusses the enigmatic Estella:
Here, Chris closely analyzes Estella’s character in light of several Dickensian “sisters” in orphanhood and harsh upbringings, notably Esther Summerson and Miss Wade:
Theme Spotlight: Misplaced Love and “Great Expectations”
The Stationmaster considers that “loving people who don’t deserve it” is a key theme in Great Expectations:
I respond with a variation on the theme, and considering the theme suggested by the novel’s title:
And as I finish up the wrap-up, I have just been watching the fourth episode of Dr Christian’s lecture series on Great Expectations (see the next thematic section), and he highlights this passage on the true nature of a “gentleman”:
Questions & Things to Consider
The Stationmaster asks:
And just a reminder that we have Dr Christian Lehmann‘s marvelous lecture series on Great Expectations…a wonderful resource for thought & conversation in close-reading this novel:
A Look-Ahead to Weeks 5 & 6 of Great Expectations (9-22 April, 2024)
This week and next, we’ll be reading chapters 43-59 of Great Expectations. This final section was published in weekly parts between 1 June and 3 Aug, 1861.
Feel free to comment below for your thoughts this week and next, or use the hashtag #DickensClub if you’re commenting on twitter.
If you’d like to read it online, you can find it at a number of sites such as Gutenberg.
All the (Dickensian) Year Round 
Beautifully done, as always, Rach! Thank you!!!
I wanted to post this earlier, but didn’t have a moment before the wrap-up.
If Great Expectations were a longer book, a monthly serial for example, and Dickens had had more time no doubt we would have more information about characters like Compeyson’s wife and the very intriguing Mrs Brandley who “had been a friend of Miss Havisham’s before the time of her seclusion”. (Ch 38) I would love to know how and what these women would have added to Miss Havisham’s story. I’d also like more about Miss Skiffins who reminds me of Miss La Creevey and Miss Tox.
I think, however, the brevity of this novel is perfect. To include the back or side stories of these and other characters would have meant that Pip would have had to hear things or witness things which are not really important to HIS story. It would be like David Copperfield inadvertently overhearing the conversation between Dr and Annie Strong, or the information would have to come second hand from another character like Mr Omer telling David about Em’ly’s running away.
And this IS Pip’s story after all. David Copperfield’s “Personal History and Experiences” encompasses quite a bit more than Pip’s narrative which is narrower in focus. “GE” is about Pip’s great expectations – the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this one thing. Granted it is a pretty big thing – it is “great” the adjective, the adverb, and the noun – but it is only one thing.
We are not given many details or examples about Mrs Joe’s rearing of Pip other than that she brought him up by hand and the Tickler was one of her implements. We are not given many drawn-out scenes of Pip’s reading with Mr Pocket. We are, instead, given just enough information to help us understand Pip’s psychological development and/or to introduce characters who play a part in the expectations story.
It is absolutely incredible how Dickens has nailed the transition from youth to maturity here. As we’ve already seen, Dickens’s ability to write the interiority of a child is spot on. Additionally here in “GE” he has captured beautifully the psyche of adolescence when one believes one knows everything while those at home know nothing. And then he finishes off by capturing the moment of realization that one knows absolutely nothing or that the path being pursued is a dead end, and the way forward becomes inspired or directed by the teachings learned in childhood from the very people one couldn’t wait to leave behind.
It’s all so relatable – which is another incredible thing about this book. Because it is about growing up its impact changes the older I get. I find it interesting that this book is taught in high school because the high schoolers’s experience falls right in the middle of Pip’s journey. They may identify with him as a child and understand his wanting to leave home because he’s ashamed of home and his aspirations to become a gentleman (to become something better), but they cannot yet identify with him at the moment of the big reveal or the after effects of that reveal because they haven’t yet had such an experience. They aren’t old enough yet to understand the impact of Pip’s realization that he’s been wrong, mistaken, rude, snobbish, ungrateful, egotistical, and that his motivations have been based on insecurity, shame, and guilt. Now that I’ve reached my middle years (God willing) I’m looking back on that time of my life but am still working on the effects of my realization. Some things I can let go, some things I use as motivation to keep moving forward, others I constantly work against while still others I embrace as the best of me. How Pip copes with his newly realized knowledge of himself we will learn in the last part of the novel.
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It is crazy to think of Miss Havisham ever having friends. I feel like a really good one would have done more to stop her from staying shut up in her house and dedicating her life to brooding over Compeyson. But to be fair, maybe Mrs. Brandley did try to talk some sense into her a long time ago without success. Pip’s description of her gives her the impression that she’s more of a comedic figure than a dramatic one. (“The mother looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother’s complexion was pink, and the daughter’s was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology.”)
I actually read an article a long time ago arguing that reading Great Expectations at such a sensitive age scares teenagers and that high schools should assign a more optimistic Dickens book instead. FWIW, I read it in high school, and I don’t think it did me any damage. (Maybe that’s because I was already a pessimist.) Even if it does “scare” teenagers, I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. The novel’s cautionary messages about the perils of setting too much importance in appearances and status and worrying too much about others’ opinions of oneself are certainly valuable ones.
Actually, the message isn’t so much that we shouldn’t care about what others think of us. It’s that we should make sure we worry about the ones whose opinions are really worthwhile. If only Pip cared as much about impressing Biddy as he did about impressing Estella!
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Something from last week’s reading surprised me. I vaguely remembered that Pip refrains from outright rejecting Magwitch out of fear that Magwitch will get mad and try to kill him. But a careful reading of his dialogue with Herbert shows that they’re actually worried it would drive Magwitch to suicide. Pip isn’t quite as selfish as you’d think.
More about the great writing in this book. I just love this description of “a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly irregular form.”
It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to understand why Estella decides to marry Drummle. But Dickens does such a great job or writing characters with abnormal psychologies like hers that I don’t feel like this is a flaw in the plot. She just feels like a real person whose thoughts and actions I don’t understand. Some miniseries adaptations have Miss Havisham be the one responsible for this marriage. I understand why they feel like they need to make this change, but I strongly dislike it. It makes Estella a much less interesting character if she never rebels against her guardian and it makes Miss Havisham’s character arc less interesting too.
So why does Estella want to marry Drummle? There’s no reason to believe she needs his money, and she doesn’t like him. (She refers to him “with the indifference of utter contempt.”) She says, “I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it.” Presumably, she means her life of making men fall in love with her and then crushing them for Miss Havisham’s entertainment. But couldn’t she just stop doing that while remaining contentedly single? At the risk of being crass, maybe she’s just feeling the biological urge to mate and, as she implies, thinks it’s kinder to marry someone who won’t be hurt by his wife not loving him and will be glad to have her for a trophy-that is, if he doesn’t mind being Paul Dombey to her Edith. Some have also suggested, given what we learn about Estella’s biological parents, that for all her apparent coolness, she’s really attracted to violent people. Remember how she let Pip kiss her after he punched Herbert. (“There was a bright flush upon her face, as though something had happened to delight her.”)
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I think it’s completely in character for Estella to marry Dremmle BECAUSE he is such an ass & oaf – all the “worthy” men will react like Pip which is exactly what Miss Havisham had hoped for & had trained Estella for.
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I’m not sure I buy that. Why would Estella say her motivation for marrying is that she’s tired of the life she’s led if her marriage is just going to be taking that life to the next level? And why wouldn’t Miss Havisham be more supportive of the marriage? But then again, Estella is a mysterious character so maybe you’re right.
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Yes, Estella is tired of her life and who better, at this moment, than Dremmle as a means of escape. Miss H may not be happy, perhaps because she wished to have Estella enter a wider circle of acquaintance – Mrs Brandley was a starting point. Perhaps Miss H hoped Estella would conquer the greater London social scene, for example.
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Could the Aged P be the best parent in the book? The father figures in Great Expectations tend be to be flawed at best and some of them are downright terrible. (I don’t consider Joe a father figure to Pip since he stresses that he treated him like an equal as a child. Even if he is considered a father to Pip, he’s also flawed in that he fails to stop Mrs. Joe from abusing him.) The mother figures in the story are even worse though Chapter 46 gives us a refreshing example in Mrs. Whimple.
Something that bugs me about most adaptations of Great Expectations is that they make Pip less forgiving to Miss Havisham than he is in the book. Even in the ones in which he does forgive her, he doesn’t do so as enthusiastically or show as much compassion for her as in the text. The 1946 movie, which is generally considered the greatest adaptation, has Pip angrily slam the door on his way out of Satis House, causing a burning log to roll out of the fireplace and set Miss Havisham’s dress ablaze. This wasn’t his intention, of course, but it feels like the implication is that Pip subconsciously wanted her dead. I feel like forgiveness is a major theme of the book and the forgiveness that Pip shows Miss Havisham demonstrates his character growth. (“There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”)
It’s interesting to compare Miss Havisham to Madame Defarge. Which one should we find more sympathetic? Madame Defarge has the more reasonable motivation, relatively speaking, for her revenge. After all, the Evremondes killed and, in one case, raped several of her family members and forced her to flee for her own life as a young girl. Most of the harm Compeyson did to Miss Havisham was emotional rather than physical. And while Madame Defarge is mainly interested in revenge, she is also trying to help the French peasantry in general. (It’s highly questionable that Estella breaking men’s hearts would stop them from breaking those of others.) On the other hand, Miss Havisham finally feels guilt, shame and empathy for her victims. (Well, one of them anyway.) Madame Defarge never feels pity for any of the people she kills or tries to kill even when she learned how Charles Darnay’s mother tried to help her and feared that her son would be punished for his father’s sins.
It’s worth noting though that Dickens implies that Miss Havisham’s grief over her own cruelties has the potential to be just as self-absorbed and destructive as her earlier grief over Compeyson’s cruelty to her. Pip writes of “the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world.”
But Miss Havisham’s remorse happily doesn’t just lead her to sit around and feel terrible. I’m planning on writing about the 1946 and 2012 movie adaptations of Great Expectations on my blog soon. I think both of them do a great job of simplifying the story while still staying very true to it. But something important that they both cut, I think, is Pip telling Miss Havisham to think better of Matthew and Herbert Pocket and her paying for Herbert’s job. I feel like those actions go a long way to redeem both characters.
Speaking of adaptations, the 2011 miniseries has Miss Havisham explicitly commit suicide. Do you think that could have been Dickens’s implication? The broadness of Pip’s description could support that. (“I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up.”)
Remember what I mentioned about underserved love being a big theme in the book? Before I thought the way Magwitch connected to that theme was his love for Pip. (When Herbert and Pip speak of him “improving” and “softening,” the real implication is clearly that they’re the ones who are changing in their attitude towards him.) But it occurs to me now that it could also relate to his love for his “missus” whom he refused to implicate even when he believed she killed the child he loved.
Could there be a parallel in Wemmick’s need to keep his father and his life at Walworth secret and Pip’s shame of Joe and his life as a blacksmith’s apprentice?
I love the waiter’s words reveal that Pumblechook really does complain about Pip even as he says he doesn’t. (“It would turn a man’s blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of it, sir.”)
I’m not sure about Orlick’s alibi. Pip says, ” I knew that when I was changed into a part of the vapour that had crept towards me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do as he had done in my sister’s case,—make all haste to the town, and be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses.” Couldn’t anyone have considered the possibility that Orlick could have attacked Mrs. Joe before he showed up in town? Is he just really, really fast?
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Between this book and A Tale of Two Cities, this was a good period for Dickens and nerve-wracking suspenseful climaxes. (I wouldn’t say the one in Great Expectations is quite as great as that in A Tale of Two Cities but it’s close.)
There’s something I don’t understand though. Why aren’t Pip, Herbert and Startop in trouble with the law for aiding and abetting Magwitch? I’m sorry I’m not more knowledgeable about the culture of this book.
This passage piques my interest.
“The late Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little got at the bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was from the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now, that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to deceive his own instruments. You don’t blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart.”
Is Wemmick saying that he, in his capacity as Jagger’s clerk, is persecuting people like Magwitch who were being blackmailed by Compeyson? Or is he just seeking they’re help with cases now that they’re not afraid to tell all?
Also, why does Wemmick bring a fishing pole to his wedding?
A cynical reader might say that the reason Pip ceases to be ashamed of Magwitch is that he will soon die and no longer be a burden to him. A less cynical reader might argue that Pip publicly supports Magwitch at his trial, implying that his redemption goes deeper than that. The cynical reader might make the counterargument that Pip doesn’t need to worry about his reputation now that knows he’s lost his fortune. With which reader do you agree? I go with the more optimistic one, but Pip is enough of an antihero that I think the cynical interpretation is legitimate.
For me, Chapter 57 is the most heartwarming in all of Dickens! This passage from the biblical book of Corinthians perfectly sums up Joe’s character. (And it’s an interesting foil to Miss Havisham’s definition of love back in Chapter 29.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I was almost sorry to hear about Orlick being arrested. True, I didn’t like him at first but anyone who pulls Pumblechook’s nose, slaps his face and stuffs his mouth with flowering annuals must have some good qualities.
It’s interesting that back in Chapter 29, Pip dreamed of being the one to “restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin,—in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess” but in the end, the only way to break the curse of Satis House seems to be for it be torn down and its properties dispersed.
How many readers were surprised by Pip, contrary to convention, not marrying Biddy in the end? I was surprised but ultimately happy with that ending. Not only do I feel Joe deserved a wife who appreciated him but, though I would have tried to convince myself, I wouldn’t have been able to believe that Pip could abandon his love for Estella after obsessing over her for so many years and thinking of Biddy as only a friend. And I would have always thought Biddy was too good for him and that she must know she was too good for him. A marriage between the two would have struck me as both of them settling. (Then again, the fact that Pip loses all inclination to go back to working at the forge after Biddy’s wedding may indicate he was more disappointed by it than he admits.)
For all that Great Expectations is full of dark, creepy and tragic subject matter, I don’t think of it as a particularly unpleasant book. That’s because while the unhealthy-minded characters and the unhealthy relationships are what give the story its interest, the book knows that life is not defined by unhealthy-minded people and unhealthy relationships. The ratio of negative characters to positive characters may be unusually high for a Dickens book, but what the positive characters lack in quantity they make up for with quality and even some of the imperfect characters show a great deal of virtue. Most of Great Expectations focused on dysfunctional romances/marriages and dysfunctional parents or parental figures. But it ends hopefully with three positively portrayed couples being married. (Herbert Pocket and Clara Barley, Wemmick and Miss Skiffins and Joe and Biddy.) And in the very last chapter, we learn that the two most positive characters have had kids, suggesting that there are now two more good parents in the world.
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I would have lost all respect for Biddy if she had married Pip. After all, how much nerve must Pip have had, or rather how insensitive was he, to think that he could just come back and she would have him! She wasn’t good enough for him before or when he had expectations so what makes him think she’d take him after he had been such an ass and now has nothing? He wasn’t thinking of her at all but only of “oh, poor me!” Good for her to marry Joe!
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I guess I might as well start the arguments about the different versions of the ending. But, first, I’d like to stress that what I believe is important about the story is what both endings have in common: that Pip and Estella have both “been bent and broken but-I hope-into a better shape.” They’ve both learned what’s most important the hard way.
I theoretically get why some fans prefer Dickens’s original ending. Having Pip be happy that Estella has learned to love even if it’s someone who’s not him is more the heroic conclusion I expected for his character based on what had come before. But in practice, the ending Dickens originally wrote feels really undercooked and arbitrary to me. I have no idea why Dickens was going to give it its own chapter. It’s so short that the information in it, while certainly of interest, could easily have squeezed into the final paragraphs of the previous chapter. After Pip has spent so much of the book angsting over Estella, it feels thuddingly anticlimactic for him to describe his final encounter with her so glibly and dismissively. Some would say that makes this version of the ending happier; it shows that Pip is finally over for her. But it just doesn’t work for me dramatically. This ending also raises as many questions as it answers. The idea of Estella falling for some doctor who defend her against her husband is intriguing but it’s such a frustrating tease for us who would never learn any of the details. The story of the Drummles’ stormy marriage sounds like a whole melodrama in itself. For Estella to say she’s incapable of love in most of her scenes and then to have her fall in love with some in the end whom we never meet would be highly anticlimactic.
I love the writing in the ending we ultimately got. Here’s a good bit.
“A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark.”
I love the symbolism in that. Things are dark but there’s hope in sight. And it’s interesting how in the middle of a scene seemingly unrelated to him, Pip remembers Magwitch.
“The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on earth.”
Could he be considering whether to tell Magwitch’s daughter about him? I suspect he shall never do so.
It also feels appropriate to me to have the final scene take place at the site of Satis House, which cast such a shadow over the lives of Pip and Estella, and to end with them leaving it for good, hopefully implying that their souls are healing from its evil impact on them. Much more poetically appropriate than having the last scene take place in some random street.
Part of the reason I don’t agree with the harshest critics of the ending as published is that it doesn’t feel as much like wish fulfillment to me as it does to them. It’s true that Dickens made it more optimistic about a continued relationship between Pip and Estella. But, unlike every other couple to whom he gave a happy ending, there’s no explicit statement that they’ll get married, only that Pip doesn’t see himself parting with her. That could mean other things. (That they’ll be friends? That they’ll be secret lovers?) Dickens was apparently willing to make the ending more conventionally happy but not that happy. Even the idea that they won’t part from each other, I’d say, is ambiguous. Estella says they will be friends apart, but Pip says he sees no shadow of another parting from her. Which do we believe? Estella has the better track record for being right about their relationship than Pip has. But after all the character development he’s undergone, it’d be nice to think that Pip was finally the correct one. In the words of Nicholas Nickleby when describing the ballet interlude of the Savage and the Maiden, this ending leaves readers “in a state of pleasing uncertainty.”
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You bring up so many great questions and thoughts here, Stationmaster, and in your previous posts! Lots to think about. Love the Nickleby quote at the end! 🙂
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Although my last read of Great Expectations (prior to the Club) was some time ago—oddly, it has never been among my favorite Dickens novels, though I love it and consider it a perfect thing in itself—I am always struck again by Jaggers in particular.
I found, via the wonderful resource (from the Dickens Fellowship), The Dickensian (online), Andrew Gordon’s 1969 essay, “Jaggers and the Moral Scheme of Great Expectations.” Essentially, Gordon argues that Jaggers, for all of his amorality, is central to the moral universe of the novel.
Gordon analyses other critics’ assertions that all of the characters in Great Expectations could be interpreted as potential alter egos of Pip—Orlick and Drummle represent what he might be in one direction, Biddy and Joe in another, for example. But Jaggers continues to be a mystery of “moral ambiguity”. Gordon argues that he is a character atypical for Dickens; neither conscience-stricken nor overtly bad; we even learn something of his intention towards Estella that makes him—for a moment—more human. But what is he in the Dickensian universe? Neither a benevolent older gentlemen/mentor/father figure, nor a villain. His facade is amorality, his passion is for a kind of control and power, however behind the scenes. Gordon argues that he could be the “dark angel” and a kind of foil to Joe as the angel of the novel. At one point in the essay, Jaggers is compared to Dickens-as-novelist, the master manipulator. With Dickens, however, we are always aware of the value of, the humor in, the sheer multifaceted wonder of life; Jaggers’s effect, on the other hand, is one of squelching life, good humor, feelings, emotions.
I recall that the Stationmaster had wondered earlier about the significance of Jaggers and “Little Britain,” and I thought this was worth quoting from Gordon at length:
“By virtue of aggressiveness combined with a curious impersonality, the harsh and awe-inspiring lawyer Jaggers stands at the top of the ladder of power in Great Expectations. His realm is a microcosm of England called ‘Little Britain’, with his office at the centre, and encompassing the slaughterhouse and the prison. Both these institutions represent mass annihilation of life.
“Like Pip, Jaggers has risen from the ranks of the common people. Now he appears to dominate everywhere, from the heights to the depths: Wemmick says, ‘“He’s always so high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities’” (249), and he is moreover ‘“deep…as Australia”’ (188), that very Australia where the exiled Magwitch holds the secret of Pip’s fortunes. Knowledge is power, and Jaggers knows more of the secret machinations which control destiny than any other character in the novel. Furthermore, in a work concerned with the attainment of worldly success, Jaggers is a type of the eminently successful individual, the man of unimpeachable, in fact, almost unapproachable character, the self-made man who is strictly obedient to the dogma of the holy trinity of his society: duty, money, and power. His mastery of the law represents the kind of success and power which one would expect Pip to emulate. Nevertheless, young Pip, the novice striving for recognition in London society in consistently disturbed by the actions of Jaggers, and frequently wishes for ‘some other guardian of minor abilities’ (249).”
Whatever the case, I was thinking that in Jaggers’s role as the keeper of secrets, the manipulator, the figure of awe, there is something of the power of the detective in him—the way Dickens has written of Bucket, inspired by Inspector Field—because he is known to have this power over the lives of others, but without, perhaps, the well-intentioned end of his workings. There is something a little God-like in him.
Gordon considers that Jaggers is almost the very embodiment of a guilty conscience. Perhaps, however, especially if one sees him as the ultimate foil to Joe, as the ultimate cynic who, seeming to have no blinders on, actually sees everything from the contorted perspective of absolute justice—i.e. justice without mercy, without consideration for or empathy with, human weakness and error, without considering the humanity and potential of the person—he is more like a twisted form of Divine justice. The strict *Law*. Joe shows, on the other hand, the essential disposition of Mercy and Love, which tempers every strict kind of justice, and sees the essential goodness and potentiality of the erring person (Pip) and loves him no matter what.
I would love to hear what everyone makes of Jaggers.
Jaggers and the Moral Scheme of “Great Expectations” Gordon, Andrew Dickensian; Jan 1, 1969; 65, 357; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 3
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“Like Pip, Jaggers has risen from the ranks of the common people…”
Hmm, put that way, you could argue Jaggers is more admirable who just had good fortune randomly dropped in his lap. Like Joe and Biddy, Jaggers has a role that “he is competent to fill and fills well and with respect.”
I’m not sure I’d say he embodies the complete neutrality of the law. His job sometimes involves him manipulating judges and juries to get criminals off and he does things like avoid bringing witnesses who look disreputable and hiding Molly’s muscles while she’s on trial. He maintains plausible deniability about Magwitch’s return to England but gives Pip covert advice about helping him. And, like you mentioned, we learn at one point he felt sorry for children born to be criminals. The fact that he seems so heartless throughout the book really makes that confession surprising and moving.
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I’m not very familiar with how the British legal system is set up (solicitors versus barristers, e.g.) but I think Tulkinghorn & Jaggers would be an interesting firm – secret keepers par excellence! Conversely, Tulkinghorn v Jaggers or Jaggers v Tulkinghorn might be very interesting cases.
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That’s so funny that you would say that! The short-lived TV series, Dickensian, which transplants characters from different Dickens books into one story, had Jaggers and Tulkinghorn be partners though they never actually showed Tulkinghorn. (I imagine if the show had been given another season, it would have introduced him.) The Jaggers on the show is barely anything like the Jaggers in Great Expectations but to be fair, he was supposed to be a younger version of him.
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I hesitate to call Jaggers “just” because in his role as defense attorney (solicitor or barrister, I don’t know which in British law) his job is not to achieve “absolute justice” but rather to obtain the best possible outcome for his client within the rules of jurisprudence, whether that client be actually innocent or actually guilty. While acquittal is the very best result he can strive for, it seems oftentimes the death penalty is the best he can achieve. Looking at his defense of his housekeeper Molly as a case in point, Jaggers successfully brings in a verdict of acquittal. But was this justice? Based on the evidence we have from Wemmick in Ch 48 and from Jaggers himself in Ch 51 it appears that Molly did in fact commit murder. I say “appears” because even with this evidence we can’t be certain because Jaggers’s information is given hypothetically. But assuming Molly IS guilty, was justice realized with her acquittal? Was Jaggers just in (1) presenting alternative explanations for the scratches on her hands, or (2) in costuming Molly to look acceptable, innocent, less menacing, less destitute, or (3) in deflecting the question of infanticide while using it to shame the jurors and judges? He is a skilled practitioner who fashions his arguments precisely to arouse the jurors and judges feelings of mercy, of consideration for or empathy with human weakness and error, and of their consideration of the humanity and potential of the accused. (Paraphrasing Rach.) That he can get Molly off speaks more to the failings of the justice system than to the skill of Jaggers. Any guilt he may have or feel stems, I think, from his awareness of his manipulation of a system which purports to be blind, to be impartial and objective, to make decisions based on facts and evidence, but which, in fact, is easily persuaded by oratory, theatrics, and emotion.
Thanks for the article, Rach!
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I’m going to refer again to Dr Leavis’s chapter entitled “How We Must Read ‘Great Expectations’” (Dickens the Novelist by F.R. Leavis and Q.D. Leavis, 1970), which I realize many of you haven’t read and may not have access to. It’s a long chapter (some 54 pages). The section I wish to comment on is section iv in which she discusses Pip’s reaction to and rejection of Magwitch as his patron.
Leavis argument stems from her “never understand[ing] the righteous indignation of the Dickens critics at Pip for not being delighted to find Magwitch as his patron, or . . . that gratitude should not overcome all other considerations.” (313) Pip’s reaction is understandable because he never once considered anyone other than Miss Havisham to be his patron. Without warning his patron’s identity is revealed and immediately the facts of Pip’s life since learning of his great expectations must be completely reinterpreted. Everything Pip believed he owed to Miss Havisham – including Estella – he now owes to a convict. If marriage to Estella had been a long shot under Miss H’s patronage, it is, in Pip’s view, a complete impossibility under Magwitch’s because he cannot imagine “offering the proud, fastidious Estella such a father-in-law”. (314-315) We can sympathize with Pip for having his legs essentially cut out from under him in terms of his castles in the air. After all, given the choice of (1) a chance encounter with a convict in a cemetery and on the marshes of perhaps 24 hours duration, and (2) playdates with a rich lady’s ward over the course of several years and the funding of indentures as proof of singling out and regard, he can be forgiven as having been mistaken as to the source of such his windfall.
As for Pip’s rejection of Magwitch’s money, Leavis argues that Pip cannot accept it without willingly playing the part of his (Magwitch’s) “bought and paid for” gentleman: “For it is at once made plain to Pip that he has been plucked out of the forge and educated in London at Magwitch’s behest less from gratitude than as a means to an end, in which the boy is merely an instrument . . . of the desire to revenge himself on the society that had unjustly discriminated” against him; “Pip is to be [Magwitch’s] puppet . . . and it is this which revolts Pip”. (315-316) Says Leavis: “Pip now realizes that he has been bought and paid for and that he is merely a valuable property to Provis; Miss Havisham was a lady, which would have made all the difference, and Pip could have respected himself as a protégé in such a relation.” (317)
The fact that Miss H was a lady was, Leavis argues, a huge difference for Dickens and one which his contemporary (British) readers would grasp whereas for Americans the class distinction was not so easily understood (313-315). That Miss H’s patronage would have been acceptable simply because of her class status in fact is lost on this American (me) because I don’t see any difference between her motivation and Magwitch’s nor in how either of them make use of Pip. Pip’s belief (hope) that Miss H had chosen him for Estella’s mate (Ch 29 & 44) also would place him in the role of a mere puppet to fulfill Miss H’s revenge against the gentlemen class that rejected her. (Read the quotes above regarding Magwitch’s use of Pip and substitute “Miss Havisham” for “Magwitch/Provis”.) The use to which the patron Miss H would put Pip is identical to that which motivated the patron Magwitch.
The mysterious nature of class distinction was explained to us by Herbert speaking of Miss H’s wealth and position, “I don’t know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew” (Ch 22). Thus Miss H is a Lady. Magwitch, on quite the other hand as a “returned transport” (Ch 41) who luckily did well as “a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in the new world” (Ch 39), doesn’t make the genteel cut. So while Pip may be squeamish about being a puppet it seems his real objection is to the puppeteer.
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I agree with Leavis that Pip’s initial distaste for Magwitch as his benefactor is forgivable. After all, he didn’t know how relatively minor the man’s crimes were. All he knew about him was that he was convicted for something, that he had violently threatened him in his childhood if he didn’t do what he was told, and that he had a vendetta against another convict (Compeyson.) His childhood terror probably magnified Magwitch’s fearsomeness in his memory and for all he knew, he could have been a serial killer. On the other hand, I agree with you that if Miss Havisham really had been Pip’s benefactor as he’d imagined, she would also have been exploiting him for vindictive purposes. Pip himself had come to the conclusion that she chose him as Estella’s eventual husband to torment her other suitors and to torment him too by drawing out the lengthy pseudo engagement. How is that better than what Magwitch was doing?
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I’ve been wondering if Pip had the lowliest birth of any Dickensian protagonist up to that point. Amy Dorrit was born in a lowly situation and Oliver Twist into one even worse, but both were technically members of the gentry. (Oliver just didn’t know it yet.) Most of the main characters of Dickens’s other major novels were also members of that class. Pip was born to be “a common laboring boy” and only had the status of gentleman bestowed upon him years later, seemingly out of the blue. Were Dickens’s original readers worried when they read the beginning of the book that it was going to be all about a blacksmith’s apprentice with nobody genteel to whom they could relate?
I guess it really wasn’t that unusual. Barnaby Rudge doesn’t exactly have a protagonist but if it does, the lowly Barnaby and the Varden family are good candidates. Trotty Veck from The Chimes and John Peerybingle from The Cricket on the Hearth are also working-class protagonists. Pickwick, Scrooge and Dombey are of the mercantile class. (What’s the difference between the mercantile class and the gentry again? I have a hard time keeping them straight.)
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Hearkening back to Mrs. Brandley, it’s implied that she and her daughter need money and that’s why they’re taking Estella under their wing, so maybe we’re supposed to feel sorry for them even though they’re described somewhat comically.
I’ve highly recommended the obscure 1989 miniseries adaptation of Great Expectations but there is something about the last episode I really don’t like, and I think it’s interesting, so I’d like to get into it here. (Anyone who doesn’t want it spoiled should avoid the rest of this comment.) It makes Pip’s reaction to finding Joe and Biddy married much sadder. When Biddy first sees him, her face goes from smiling to apologetic, implying she knows what he wanted to ask her and is sorry for him. Pip still tells Joe and Biddy he’s happy for them but most of his final speech to them from the book is cut and the scene ends with a closeup of his face full of regret. In the book, I feel like he honestly is mostly relieved that Joe never knew about his “last baffled” and it feels like a much happier ending.
That being said, I prefer that version of the scene to the ones in the 1981 miniseries and the 1999 one-man, it’s hard to keep track of all these-which have Pip actually propose to Biddy before she tells him that she’s married. Those really feel wrong to me. I do understand why they do that though. With the change of medium from book to miniseries, how are they supposed to convey Pip’s intentions towards Biddy? The 1989 series gracefully gets around that by moving Wemmick’s wedding to after Pip’s recovery and ending the scene with him telling Wemmick he plans to propose. Of course, that raises the question of where Wemmick was during Pip’s illness. Oh well. Nothing’s perfect.
As badly as it stumbles near the finish line, the 1989 Great Expectations redeems itself for me with the final scene. They move it from the site of Satis House to the churchyard, so the story ends the same place it began. As I mentioned before, I prefer the book’s setting for the ending for thematic reasons. But what the adaptation came up with for the inscription on Miss Havisham’s monument is just perfect! I like to think Dickens himself would have loved it.
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