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Unit 14: Great Expectations: Detailed Study of Text-III

Notes

Notes Pip spends the day with Wemmick’s deaf old relative, the “Aged,” and leaves as
it starts to grow dark.

Analysis

As the threat on Magwitch’s life grows, so does Pip’s affection and worry for him. Pip is no
longer worried about himself, or even about having the blood of Magwitch on his hands, he
is worried about the man at hand.
In this crisis, Pip is reminded who his true friends are: Wemmick, who is willing to be
unprofessional and ask questions around the criminal areas of town and Herbert, who is
risking his own life by helping Pip harbor a wanted man.

Part III: Chapter 7

Pip goes down to Clara’s to find Magwitch and Herbert. Herbert introduces him to Clara.
Clara has no relatives except her father, a drunk, bed-ridden old sailor who lives on the
second floor (Herbert has never met him) and constantly claims Clara’s attention.
Pip tells Magwitch that he is being watched and this is the best place for him now. In order
to stay safe, Pip and Magwitch must only have contact through Herbert. Pip is a little sad to
leave him. The rough old convict appears to have “softened” a bit.

Analysis

In this chapter, Pip actually misses Magwitch and wants to be closer to him. We are reminded
of a parrallel moment in the first chapter when young Pip looked back on the marshes he was
running from and saw Magwitch walking away into the cold night. That singular figure on
the horizon struck a sympathetic chord in young Pip and made the two of them unified in
their abandonment by the world. Here, too, Pip has changed from fear (and disgust) of the
convict, to sympathy and genuine companionship.

Part III: Chapter 8

Pip goes to dinner alone one night, then to the theater where he sees Mr. Wopsle in one of his
productions. Mr. Wopsle stares strangely at Pip throughout the play, getting quite out of
character.
Afterwards, Mr. Wopsle asks Pip who it was that he came with. Pip says he came alone.
Mr. Wopsle tells him that there was man sitting behind Pip for much of the production and
that he recognized him as the second convict that he, Pip, and Joe had hunted with the
soldiers when Pip was just a child. Compeyson!

Analysis
Things are coming together quickly in the next few chapters. Pip is learning mysteries that
have been unknown since the beginning of the novel. At the same time, the suspense is
growing because there is a sense that all of these subplots are going to collide soon. Compeyson
and Magwitch’s ongoing hatred, Miss Havisham’s “creation” of Estella, Pip’s snubbing of Joe
and Biddy. The rhythm of the novel and its subplots — the introduction of mysterious events,
their explanations, and the reaction of these explanations by the various characters — lends
itself well to the series genre in which these stories, and all of Dickens’ novels, were first

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