The Old Curiosity Club discussion
Great Expectations
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GE, Chapter 29
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Mod
Pip assumes that Miss Havisham has "as good as adopted me" and believes he will be the saviour of her, Estella and Satis House. I found it ironic that Pip believes he can "set the clocks a going." Here is another of our references to time, which got me thinking ...
Footwear seems to be one of the central images in the novel. There is no question that the state of Pip's boots was one of the major factors that defined the old Pip as a rather working, low-class person. We have noted how one of the ways Pip has defined himself is by his new clothes and boots, and further how Pip is conscious of the footwear of other people as well. He has noticed the footwear - or lack of it - of Miss Havisham, the footwear of Herbert as he ascended the stairs to their residence in London, and now Dickens draws the reader's attention to the fact that Pip ascended the staircase "in lighter boots than of yore" to meet Miss Havisham. Once in the room , he sees Miss Havisham and "[s]itting near her, with a white shoe, that had never been worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it" was Estella. Later in the chapter we read that "Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, and looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still, but she lured me on."
The manner in which Dickens incorporates footwear is interesting. First, shoes/boots are used as a way to convey social status. The young Pip's thick boots clearly peg him as a member of the working class. The forgotten, aging shoe of Miss Havisham defines both her wealth and the fact that she has been left standing alone at the marriage altar. Unable or unwilling to move forward in her life, Miss Havisham, like her shoe, is slowly dissolving into tatters. In Chapter XXVII Pip comments that he knew it was Joe on the staircase on account of "his state boots being always too big for him."
This novel has much of the fairy-tale about it, and one of the major emblems of fairy tales is the story of Cinderella. Here, I believe, Dickens has twisted the tale. We do have the shoe in Estella's hand, and to Pip she certainly is a princess. The story of Cinderella does function around the notion of time, and how at midnight, the world will change, just as how Miss Havisham's world changed at 8:40. This irony of the story of Cinderella in comparison to Great Expectations is, of course, the reversal of roles. It is Cinderella who is the working class person and the male is the Prince in the fairy tale. In GE, it is Pip, the male, who is the working class individual and Estella the true princess - at least in Pip's eyes.
Does Pip not see this? Of course not, for as Estella "puts the shoe down" that she is holding, this action is symbolic of her putting Pip down, putting him aside. Indeed, she even warns Pip of her feelings when she comments " You must know ... condescending to me as a brilliant woman might, that I have no heart - if that has anything to do with my memory." Sadly Pip, caught up in his fantasy role as both suitor and saviour of Estella, is deaf to her warning. Unlike the fairy tale of Cinderella that was destined to be successful, Pip's princess has warned him she is an enchantress, and a destructive one at that.
Mod
A little preview for Estella's comments to Pip?
Mod
Once again I am deeply intrigued by your ability to work out certain patterns and recurring symbols in the book. This time, you concentrate on shoes and show how they denote social status but also, in the case of Estella and the whithering shoe Miss Havisham never wore, are an allusion (and a perversion) of the fairy tale of Cinderella. - When I read the passage about the bridal shoe and Estella's holding it in her hand, my first impression also was, "Oh dear, now we know for sure that Miss Havisham wants Estella to walk on in her shoes." Apparently, the young lady is ready to follow in Miss Havisham's footsteps. Nevertheless, when she tells Pip that she has no heart, does that not show that she is not completely devoid of feeling? Does she not want to warn Pip against further falling under her thrall - and in warning Pip, does she not counteract Miss Havisham's plans, i.e. making her capable and ready to break Pip's heart?
Mod
Mod
A little preview for Estella's comments to Pip?"
I do see certain similarities between Edith and Estella - both women are very proud and have hardly any gentle feelings left in them, although we later see that Edith is never hard on Florence but tries to treat her gently. Apart from that, both woman never had a real mother's care and love but were raised by their mothers (and I regard Miss Havisham now, for the sake of the argument, in the light of Estella's mother) to achieve aims they, the mothers, had. Edith's mother is keen on wealth and rank, whereas Miss H. thirsts for vicarious revenge on the male sex.
Mod
A Rubber at Miss Havisham's
Marcus Stone
1864
Text Illustrated:
"She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham’s room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella’s hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him, with those rich flushes of glitter and color in it.
Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be within a foot or two of him,—it was, that my feelings should be in the same place with him,—that, was the agonizing circumstance.
We played until nine o’clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her at the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left her."
Commentary:
"Not all of Marcus Stone's eight illustrations for the 1862 Library Edition are of the quality of the frontispiece, Pip Waits on Miss Havisham, although certainly some exceed the level of the "banal". Such is not the case with the bridge scene, whose virtue is that it offers a clear depiction of Jaggers — the only one in Stone's sequence of eight wood-engravings."
Mod
Pip and Estella Walking in the Garden
Charles Green
c. 1877
Dickens's Great Expectations, Gadshill Edition
Text Illustrated:
"Miss Havisham will soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.”
Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could not have been more cherished in my remembrance.
There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me; we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more in her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen us for one another. Wretched boy!"
Mod
"Estella and Pip in Miss Havisham's Garden"
Chapter 29
Harry Furniss
1910
Mod
"We walked round the garden twice or thrice more."
Chapter 29
John McLenan
1861
Text Illustrated:
"When we had conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the neglected garden: on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel her about a little, as in times of yore.
So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I had strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert; I, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she, quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we drew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,—
“I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.”
“You rewarded me very much.”
Mod
"Miss Havisham and Estella"
Sol Eytinge
1867
The seventh illustration in Dickens's Great Expectations in Diamond Edition
Commentary:
In this final dual, full-page character study for the second novel in the compact American publication, the mature beauty that Pip initially fails to recognise and her mentor in the game of breaking hearts sit before the fire as Pip enters the room at Satis House.
No longer is Estella merely a beautiful girl. She has matured physically to the point that Pip does not initially recognise her — until she turns her eyes upon him. The moment realised occurs relatively late in the story, in chapter 29, but Eytinge utilizes many earlier passages that convey a sense of the reclusive heiress. His representation of her lacks the subtleties of those by John McLenan (1861), Marcus Stone (1862), and F. A. Fraser in the 1870s Household Edition.
In Marcus Stone's short series of eight woodcuts for the Illustrated Library Edition of the novel in 1862, Miss Havisham appears twice, initially (in the frontispiece) as a radiant beauty in a wedding dress, the fairy godmother who will raise Pip out of working-class poverty, in "Pip Waits Upon Miss Havisham, and later as an elderly woman playing cards in "A Rubber at Miss Havisham's". Neither illustration depicts one of the novel's central relationships, namely that between the wealthy recluse and her adopted daughter. John McLenan, illustrator for the 1860-61 Harper's Weekly sequence, seems to have been far more interested in Miss Havisham's other pivotal relationship — that with Pip himself — as is reflected in his eleventh and thirteenth full-page plates "Who is it?" said the lady at the table. "Pip, Ma'am." and "It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!" For the May 4 installment, however, McLenan depicted Miss Havisham as a wasted, alienated figure carrying a lighted taper in a dark, mouldering room in "She carried a bare candle in her hand", an illustration pointing towards her accidental immolation. Rather more interesting and emotionally charged is the scene of mutual forgiveness in F. A. Fraser's "I entreated her to rise", the twenty-fifth illustration in the 1877 Household Edition, but again, like all the other original illustrators except Sol Eytinge, Fraser avoids realising any scene that would serve as a visual comment upon the relationship between Miss Havisham and her acolyte. His illustration is noteworthy in that it combines two widely separated moments in the text, namely Pip's first impression of Miss Havisham as a waxworks horror and his much later impression of her as Estella's proud parent, displaying the product of her misanthropic teachings. That Eytinge has both moments in mind he signals by Estella's maturity and Miss Havisham's touching her heart when Pip first visits Satis House as a "common labouring boy":
"She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, and silks — all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on — the other was on the table near her hand — her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.
'Who is it?' said the lady at the table.
'Pip, ma'am.'
'Pip?
'Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come — to play.'
'Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.'
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.
'Look at me,' said Miss Havisham. 'You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?'
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer 'No.'
'Do you know what I touch here?' she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.
'Yes, ma'am.' (It made me think of the young man.)
'What do I touch?'
'Your heart.'
'Broken!'
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards, she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy. [Chapter 8]
However, Eytinge is not depicting this incident — Pip's initial impression of the weird heiress — because her companion, subsequently revealed as Estella, is a mature woman in this illustration, so that the incident realised is clearly the following in chapter 29:
'Come in, Pip,' Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round or up; 'come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh? — Well?'
She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a grimly playful manner,
'Well?'
'I heard, Miss Havisham,' said I, rather at a loss, 'that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.'
'Well?'
The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning admiration had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her! [Chapter 29]
Although the illustration appears late in the Diamond Edition volume, Eytinge is utilising the earlier description and gesture of Miss Havisham in this character study based on chapter 29. His sublimating the descriptive passage, particularly Miss Havisham's gaunt and withered physical condition and her dessicated wedding dress and veil, in depicting her in the later scene effectively means he is presenting two widely separated narrative moments at once. But what of Estella's knitting, which does not occur in either passage? It is a logical past-time for a genteel lady of the mid-Victorian period, but it may also have symbolic significance in that Eytinge may be implying that her destiny is intimately bound up with Pip's, or even that, like the member of the Classical Fates (Greek "Moirai," or Scandinavian "Norns" from Shakespeare's Macbeth), Lachesis, who measures the thread of life allotted to each person.
That there is no chair between Miss Havisham and Estella in Eytinge's illustration, as there is in Dickens's text, may easily be accounted for by the illustrator's having to juxtapose the figures as part of the exigencies of the compact design. Eytinge has given Estella a dark dress and a more modern hair-style to contrast her with Miss Havisham to suggest not merely Estella's youth but also her sense of fashion acquired in Paris. Then, too, in Eytinge's illustration, while Estella stares off right, presumably at the fire, Miss Havisham seems to be entreating the viewer (Pip). In the text, she specifically plays with Estella's hair, an action that is inconsistent with the tight hairstyle Eytinge has given the younger woman. The most effective touch is the older woman's gesturing at her heart with a skeletal hand as she reaches for Estella with the other.
Mod
Once again I am deeply intrigued by your ability to work out certain patterns and recurring symbols in the book. This time, you concentrate on shoes and show how they denote social status b..."
Tristram
Yes. You are right. What a strange situation when you tell someone you have no feelings is suggestive that you do have some feelings for another person and do not want to hurt them.
GE is operating on so many levels. To think that Dickens was pumping out chapters every week among everything else he was doing. I only wish I had his energy ... or 1/10 of it.
Mod
Kim
I dream of a chapter in GE where a bird is nesting in a shoe and checking its wristwatch to see if it is time to eat some cake while an act of violence is happening on a staircase.
Sounds a bit like a Lewis Carroll plot.
Mod
Chapter 29
Harry Furniss
1910"
Thanks, again and again for the illustrations Kim.
Once again, Harry Furniss captures my attention of what the scene and people should look like. Here, the characters are well presented. Estella looks almost early 20 C. Pip seems wistful, almost resigned to his state in life. In the right top of the illustration we have a disused old barrel. It reminds us that while there may be an image of potential love in the centre of the frame, we are in a neglected place.
I also liked the John McLenan illustration but that is one huge plant in the left centre of the illustration.
Mod
Once again I am deeply intrigued by your ability to work out certain patterns and recurring symbols in the book. This time, you concentrate on shoes and show how they denot..."
1/10 of Dickens's energy in my frame would probably result in a heart attack.
Mod
I greatly like the almost photographic Green illustration: We can't decide what Estella's left arm is more suggestive of doing - leaning on Pip's shoulder, or keeping him at arm's length. I think this catches Estella's strange policy with regard to Pip, which is also mirrored by the paradox that Miss Havisham's demand that Pip love Estella sounds like a curse.
Then there are Pip's arms and hands, too - do they suggest despair, being at a loss as to what to do, or are they just a sign of his passivity?
All in all, a great illustration.
Mod
Kim
I dream of a chapter in GE where a bird is nesting in a shoe and che..."
I love it. Could your chapter be illustrated by Kid? :-)
Mod
Your comment reminded me of a quote by G. H. Lewes regarding Dickens novels:
"Dickens once declared to me that every word said by his characters was distinctly heard by him; I was at first not a little puzzled to account for the fact that he could hear language so utterly unlike the language of real feeling, and not be aware of its preposterousness; the surprise vanished when I thought of the phenomena of hallucination."
from the Fortnightly Review 1872
And to Mr. Lewes I say - grump.
Mod
Kim
I dream of a chapter in GE where a bird is nesting in ..."
Absolutely. A Kyd would be the icing on the cake. :-))
Mod
Your comment reminded me of a quote by G. H. Lewes regarding Dickens novels:
"Dickens..."
The quote of G H Lewes ( we'll make it rhyme)
Gives me the Blues
From the top of my head
To the soles of my shoes.
Mod
Between Dickens and Lewes,
'twould be Pickwick and Gamp
In all their cries and hues.
And if only it rhymed,
I would also tell Lewes
To ... vamoose.
Mod
Between Dickens and Lewes,
'twould be Pickwick and Gamp
In all their cries and hues.
And if only it rhymed,
I would also tell Lewes
To ... vamoose."
Perfect. :-))
Mod
What I wonder about is the use of the surname Gargery. ."
I took this simply to mean that the forge was known in the area as Gargery's Forge. Which would be more natural, I think, than to call it informally Joe's Forge. And Orlick always, if I recall, called Joe master and not Joe, so calling Joe so to Orlick's face might seem inappropriate, especially since he left the forge presumably not under the most friendly circumstances.
Mod
Now that I consider somewhat, well, sick.
Mod
What I wonder about is the use of the surname Gargery. ."
I took this simply to mean that the forge was known in the area as ..."
Yes, that's true. I quite forgot that Pip would not use the first name of their master to Orlick's face. He left out the Mr., though.
Mod
Quite so, quite so - and she seems to pride herself on the sufferings this weird kind of love brought her, while at the same time she takes it ill and seems to hate the whole male sex for what happened to her. That's not only sick, but also highly illogical.
I think this is the first Charles Green illustration I've disliked! I find Estella altogether too wraithlike, so find it interesting that you picked it out for its excellence Tristram. I don't understand the significance of Orlick being the gatekeeper. Either I'm missing something here, or have forgotten some future event, or it's one of those "undeveloped plot-lines just in case" which Dickens used to strew around the place, though I'd thought they feature more in his earlier, less rigorously planned and tightly plotted novels.
Yes, Pip has become a despicable snob. This Estella must be really something. I'm afraid I do find this squares with human nature, sometimes, but since the older Pip is writing quite candidly of it, we may live in hope that he sees the error of his callow earlier ways!
Mod
Yes, I agree both have a good demeanour. Perhaps Estella's ethereal quality was deliberate, to fit into the "stellar" sense of Pip's perception, but for me it doesn't work.
Mod
If there is significance in it, I have yet to figure it out too. But maybe it's just because -- I forget whether this happens in these chapters or the next ones so I'll slip it into a spoiler, though if you've read ahead a chapter or two it won't be (view spoiler)
Peter wrote: "Well, Pip. You are becoming more and more dislikable all the time. "Miss Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side." You have sunk to a new level. London, rather than forming you into a gentleman, has made you into a rather insensitive young man."That sums up my feelings of Pip at this point. How disheartening to see a Pip go from a feeling young friend and confident of Joe's to a person who can not stand to think of himself even occupying the same side of town as Joe. And all because Pip is supposedly "better".
Unlike the fairy tale of Cinderella that was destined to be successful, Pip's princess has warned him she is an enchantress, and a destructive one at that.
I enjoyed reading your comparison to the fairy tale Cinderella, Peter. The shoe in Estella's hand caught my eye, but I couldn't come up with an explanation for its significance!
Kim wrote: ""Estella and Pip in Miss Havisham's Garden"Chapter 29
Harry Furniss
1910"
I like this illustration out of the lot. It's what I imagine Pip and Estella looking like, especially Estella's mannerisms and how she's still looking down on Pip as a boy.
Peter wrote: "I also liked the John McLenan illustration but that is one huge plant in the left centre of the illustration. "Ha! I didn't notice the plant until you pointed it out. It looks like some monster plant from a forbidden land.
Peter wrote: "Absolutely. A Kyd would be the icing on the cake. :-))"I don't know, Peter. I might be horrified at what a Kyd bird would end up looking like. :)
Mod
I don't know, Peter. I might be horrified at what a Kyd bird would end up looking like. :)"
Linda
Yikes. A Kyd bird. No kidding. :-0
Tristram wrote: "Hello Fellow-Curiosities,This is the second part of Pip’s visit to the place where he spent his childhood and early years, and right at the beginning of this chapter we learn that Pip makes sure ..."
When Pip is with Miss Havisham a little later, the old lady entreats him to love Estella, but the way she does this does not encourage us to be very optimistic about her intentions:
Absolutely, she does not encourage us to be optimistic. It's exactly as Pip says, it's a curse. The whole scene played out in a Poe-esque manner...Dark and sinister.
Oh, this does not bode well for Pip at all. The sad part is that Pip realizes it, but he does not want to believe it.
Peter wrote: "Well, Pip. You are becoming more and more dislikable all the time. "Miss Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side." You have sunk to a new level. London, rather than forming you into a ge..."Peter, what a great correlation you have made, mentioning the different footwear and how it relates to the narrative. For the first time, I see Estella through a different set of reading eyes. She's just being brutally honest with Pip, I think, it may not all be about soul crushing heart debilitating antics on her part.
Mod
He is young and head over heels in love, and so it is very likely for him to act (and feel) against his better judgment.
This is the second part of Pip’s visit to the place where he spent his childhood and early years, and right at the beginning of this chapter we learn that Pip makes sure he ”loitered into the country on Miss Havisham’s side of town – which was not Joe’s side”. Pip also thinks that Miss Havisham plans to unite Estella and him one day in order for them to restore life to Satis House, which is – if you ask me – a very naïve thought considering how much care Miss Havisham has taken to get life out of Satis House in the first place.
Pip’s first surprise at arriving is that the place has a new gatekeeper now, and that this person is no one else but Orlick, who greets him with the ominous words,
These words seem to indicate that Pip is not the only one to entertain great expectations, but they also show, to some extent, Pip’s egocentrism. I could not help wondering at the following sentence used by the narrator in this context:
What I wonder about is the use of the surname Gargery. Does Pip really speak of Joe as Gargery to Orlick, and if so, what does this imply?
When the narrator tells how he is finally led into the presence of Miss Havisham and Estella by an envious Sarah Pocket, he makes quite a point of his boots not being as thick as they used to be – in fact, he mentions this point twice, and he also remarks that at first, he does not recognize the young lady sitting next to Miss Havisham and holding Miss Havisham’s shoe in her hand as Estella. Then we get this:
And the following interesting detail:
Why does the narrator make such a point of mentioning that Estella is holding Miss Havisham’s shoe? All this happens when Miss Havisham eagerly asks Estella if Pip is still as coarse as he used to be and when she asks Pip if Estella is as haughty as she used to be. She seems to have a strong interest in kindling the young people’s interest in each other, and she is exceedingly greedy about the results of her experiment. When Estella and Pip take a walk in the strangely overgrown garden [!] a little later, their conversation includes the following observations:
Then, there is also a strange warning imparted to Pip by Estella, who seems to be in two minds about the role she is supposed to be playing:
During these moments, and sometimes later, Estella reminds Pip of something he cannot really put a name to. Are we in for another of Dickens’s great plot twists and sensational surprises?
When Pip is with Miss Havisham a little later, the old lady entreats him to love Estella, but the way she does this does not encourage us to be very optimistic about her intentions:
To make Pip’s horrors complete, Miss Havisham faints at the close of her little speech, and later, there is Mr. Jaggers paying a visit to Miss Havisham, his client. On finding Pip, he is quite interested in how often Pip has already seen Estella, whereupon Miss Havisham tells him, ”leave my Pip alone”! The possessive ‘my’ is quite interesting here, isn’t it?
The chapter then ends in the following ominous words: