Page 172 - DENG404_FICTION

Fiction

Notes He returns to his home town and, at the town inn, meets Drummle, who is obviously courting
Estella. The two pass rude words to each other, then they depart on their own ways.

Analysis
Magwitch has turned Pip’s world upside down, just as he had turned the Young Pip upside
down to get some bread when they first ran into each other in the churchyard. But even if
Magwitch had not presented himself as benefactor, it is clear that Pip would not have lived
a satisfying life. With or without Magwitch, Estella was not being grommed for Pip. She was
being groomed as a lady for a man of greater fortune, in this case, the insolent Drummle. The
high-class life that Pip thought he wanted is not a very pleasant place to be with people like
Drummle taken as models. But Pip’s world had to be turned upside down for him to start
seeing that.

Part III: Chapter 5

Pip finds Miss Havisham and Estella in the same banquet room in the Satis. Pip tells
Miss. Havisham that he is unhappy with the way she led him on to thinking that she was his
benefactor and the manner in which she hinted that he and Estella were destined to be together.
It was his own fault, says Miss Havisham, just like it was the fault of her relatives to believe
this was the case as well.
Pip tells her that Herbert and Matthew Pocket are different from her other relatives. They are
the same blood but they are kind and upright. Pip breaks down and confesses his love for
Estella. Estella tells him straight that she is incapable of love — she had warned him of as
much before — and she will soon be married to Drummle.
Even Miss Havisham seems to be finally feeling sympathy toward Pip, holding her heart as
if remember how her own was broken.
Pip walks back to London. At the gate to his house he is given a note by the Porter written
by Wemmick: “Don’t Go Home.”

Analysis
Pip is justifiably angry at both Miss. Havisham and Estella, though he forgives them both
without them even asking because he realizes it was his own folly that brought him to unreal
expectations. Estella’s and Miss. Havisham have vastly different reactions to Pip’s break down
in front of them. Miss. Havisham appears to be touched, finally, and Pip’s broken heart strikes
a chord in her own heart. Estella, on the other hand, appears amazed at the show of emotion
and doesn’t seem to understand it. She is not angry, she is curious, as she really doesn’t know
what it means to love as Pip is now loving her.

Their reactions may also be an indication of culpability, in the sense that some characters are
more guilty of their sins than others because of the level consciousness in their actions.
Miss. Havisham deliberately set out to break Pip’s heart through Estella. Estella, on the other
hand, is unconscious of what she did. She only acted as she was brought up to act.

Part III: Chapter 6

Pip gets a room at a nearby inn and in the morning visits Wemmick at his castle. Wemmick
tells Pip things he has learned from the prisoners at Newgate. Pip is being watched, he says,
and may be in some danger. As well, Compeyson has made his presence known in London.
Wemmick has already warned Herbert as well who, heeding the warning, brought Magwitch
to his fiance Clara’s house in a neighborhood that Pip does not frequent. As well, the house
is right next to a dock on the Thames, making an escape by river more easily accomplished.

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