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Unit 13: Great Expectations: Detailed Study of Text-II

Self Assessment Notes

Fill in the blanks:
1. Jagger’s office located in a place called ......... .
2. Wemmick brings Pip to ......... .
3. Dickens pointedly, is making two criticisms here aimed at ......... .

4. Pip journeys back to this hometown to see ......... .
5. Pip conscience bothers him with regard to ......... who he continues to ignore.

Analysis
The chapter closing the second part of the novel closes as well Pip’s great expectations. The
irony is that the convict lived his life for Pip, worked his fingers to the bone to make Pip a
gentleman. He did this based on the true act of kindness that Pip demonstrated when he gave
the convict wittles to eat in the marshes. With all of his money and education, however, Pip
has become much less of a noble “gentleman” than when he was a child. Pip has become less
prone to kind acts than when he was a poor shivering orphan in a lonely courtyard. As seen
by Pip’s decaying relationship with his adoptive father Joe and his true friend Biddy, but most
strongly by his horrified reaction to his benefactor in this chapter, Pip has become an unkind,
ungenerous, pompous ass.
Considering his situation, Pip first becomes angry at Miss. Havisham, who used him and
deliberately led her relatives and himself into believing that he was destined for her fortune.
But his anger soon turns to himself, when he realizes how badly he treated Biddy and Joe, his
true friends. He saw Joe as common and low class when all the time he was being supported
by the lowest of the classes, a convict.

Although Pip learns that his expectations were all a sham and he realizes that he has mistreated
Biddy and Joe, he is still basing his thoughts on the class system, society’s ideas of “gentleman”
and “common.” Although Pip’s future seems to have changed, internally he still has not
learned that the hierarchy of the class system says nothing about the nobleness of a person or
how to lead a happy life. Indeed, he thinks he is ruined because he now associates himself
with a convict, even though the convict has shown him nothing but kindness. He doesn’t
know what crime the convict committed; he only classifies him as less than common because
of his label of “convict.” Even his guilt about how he treated Joe is based on the fact that the
money which brought him great expectations is somehow less pure than money from
Miss. Havisham. Yet the convict has shown Pip more generosity and care than Miss. Havisham
ever did: “Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father.” Dicken’s finishes this part with the line,
“This is the end of the second stage of Pip’s expectations.”

13.3 Summary

• Wemmick brings Pip to Bernard’s Inn, where he will be staying when he is in town.
• Dickens, pointedly, is making two criticisms here aimed at English society.
• Dicken’s humorously uses Wemmick to show how conforming to society, in this case

Wemmick’s job at Jaggers, can twist a person so much as to make them unidentifiable.
• Pip imagines that Miss. Havisham has adopted both he and Estella to raise them to be
with each other.
• Pip has his twenty-third birthday and seems to be doing very little with his life.

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