Page 148 - DENG404_FICTION

Fiction

Notes and seemed very proud.” Estella lets Pip in, but sends Mr. Pumblechook on his way. She leads
him through a dark house by candle and leaves him outside a door. He knocks and is let in.
There he meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed woman dressed in an old wedding gown.
She calls for Estella and the two play cards, despite Estella’s objection that Pip was just a
“common labouring-boy.” “Well,” says Miss Havisham, “you can break his heart.” Estella
insults Pip’s coarse hands and his thick boots as they play.
Smarting from the insults, Pip later cries as he eats lunch in the great house’s yard. He
explores the yard and the garden, always seeing Estella in the distance walking ahead of him.
Finally, she lets him out of the yard and he walks the four miles home, feeling low.

Analysis

Dickens uses strong imagery to describe Miss Havisham’s house (“The Manor House” or the
“Satis House”) as barren of feelings or even life, even before we meet the bitter Miss Havisham
and the rude Estella: “The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate...”
Again we have a strange mystery: Why is this woman always in the dark, and dressed in a
wedding gown? Who is the young and pretty Estella and what is she doing in such a morbid
place?
Pip’s first taste of “higher society” is a bitter one, and it leaves him ashamed and embarrassed
rather than justifiably angry. Pip is, in fact, just a toy for both Miss Havisham, who wants him
to “play,” and Estella, who treats him roughly while at the same time flirts. Pip, torn between
being insulted and his attraction to Estella, opts to feel ashamed of his upbringing — so much
so that he “wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up.” His new found respect and
love for Joe was being spoiled by his embarrassment of being brought up in a lower class family.

Chapter 9

Pip is forced to talk about his day to Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook. Pip lies in a fantastical
matter, making up stories about dogs being fed veal and Miss Havisham lounging on a velvet
couch. He lies, partly in spite, but also because he is sure that the two would not understand
the situation at the Satis House even if he described it in detail.
Later, Pip tells Joe the truth, and also confesses that he is embarrassed about being a “commoner”
because of his attraction to Estella. Joe reassures him that he is not common; he is uncommon
small and an uncommon scholar. Referring to Pip’s lies, he adds, “If you can’t get to be on
common through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked.”

Analysis

Joe’s analysis, though phrased in what Pip would call “common” language, is accurate: Pip is
trying to become “uncommon” by lying about his experiences. Pip made up lies about the
Satis House with the intention of glorifying it in front of the eager Mr. Pumblechook and
Mrs. Joe, both of whom eat it up. While Pip is naively honest in admitting to Joe that he wants
to become uncommon, he is intelligent enough to know that he can become uncommon by
being dishonest, or, as Joe would have it, “crooked.”
One of the main themes of the book is spelled out in this chapter, specifically, the desire to
rise above one’s social station. Dickens, writing this book toward the end of his life, is speaking
directly of his own youthful desires and those of his father as well. As the story of Pip unfolds
and we witness the different ways in which Pip tries to climb the social ladder — by making
up fantastical stories in this case — it will be interesting to listen to the running commentary
made by the narrator, the older Pip, who, like Dickens himself, is looking back on this theme
and reflecting on how it affected his happiness later on in life.

142 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY