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Unit 12: Great Expectations: Detailed Study of Text-I

Chapter 10 Notes
Pip states plainly that he wants to be uncommon and so, taking to heart Joe’s advice that “you
must be a common scholar afore you can be a on common one,” he asks Biddy at the small
school to help him get educated. Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s school is little more than a play
school and Pip understands it will be hard to concentrate on some actual learning, but Biddy
agrees and gives Pip some books to start with.
On the way home, Pip goes into a pub to pick up Joe. He finds Joe sitting with a stranger, a
man with one eye pulled closed and a worn hat on his head. The man asks Joe all kinds of
personal questions, some about Pip’s relation to him, the whole time staring at Pip. At one
point, the man stirs his drink with Joe’s file — the file Pip stole to give to the convict! As Joe
and Pip depart, the stranger hands Pip a coin wrapped in paper.
When they get home, Pip realizes that the paper is actually a two pound note. Thinking it was
a mistake (though Pip knows somehow that it wasn’t) Joe runs back to the pub to give it back
but the man is gone.

Analysis

Pip, excited at the beginning of the chapter by the prospect of educating himself to become
uncommon, is reminded of his common, and somewhat illegitimate, past by the stranger in
the pub. As he goes to sleep, he is bothered by the fact that it is uncommon to be “on secret
terms of conspiracy with convicts.”
The man clearly knew something about Pip assisting the convict and wanted Pip to know that
he did. How he knows remains a mystery, but Pip’s immediate fear is how his past will
“haunt” him as he tries to climb out of his common background.

12.2 Part I, Chapters 11–19 (11–19)

Chapter 11
A few days later, Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s as directed. This time, the house seems full
of people waiting to see her but she sees him first. She brings him into a great banquet hall
where a table is set with food and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake are years
old, untouched except by a vast array of rats, beetles and spiders which crawl freely through
the room. Miss. Havisham has Pip walk her around the room as four guests are brought in:
Sarah Pocket, a “vicious,” “dry, brown, corrugated woman;” Georgiana, “the grave lady;”
Camilla, an old melodramatic woman; and her husband, Cousin Raymond. All are, apparently,
the same age or a little younger than the withered Miss. Havisham and all come to see her on
the same day of the year: her birthday, which also happens to be the day when the cake was
set out and the clocks were stopped so many years ago; i.e. the day Miss Havisham stopped
living.
Miss. Havisham continues walking around the room, saying little to her guests, until the
mention of a certain Matthew, whereupon she stops short. The guests leave, and Miss. Havisham
once again asks that Estella and Pip play cards as she watches.

As Pip is once again allowed to explore the yard, he runs into a pale, young gentleman who
challenges him to fight. Despite the young man’s jumping about and expert preparation (bringing
some water and explaining the rules), Pip gives him a bloody nose, a black eye, and a general
whopping. They end the fight and the boy, cheerful as ever, wishes Pip a good afternoon. At
the gate, Estella tells Pip that he may kiss her if he likes. Pip kisses her on the cheek.

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