The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late than never I suppose and here it is.

In the beginning of the chapter we find time passes, although I'm not sure how much time, and Pip is now twenty-three. He says that not a word has been said about his expectations. He has finished studying with Mr. Pocket some time ago and hasn't been able to decide what to do next. He just couldn't settle on one thing when his expectations are still hanging over him. I suppose a person who is expecting all sorts of things can't lower himself to work. One night he is all alone, Herbert being away on business, and during a midnight thunderstorm, he hears heavy footsteps trudging up his stairs. An old sailor enters Pip’s apartment, Pip treats him nervously and haughtily being confused as to why this man seemed so delighted to see him. When Pip finally gets a good look at him he recognizes him, it is Pip’s convict.

"I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and the rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the fire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me; no need to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn across the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious of remotely suspecting his identity."

And now Pip finally receives his "great expectations" or at least where they are coming from, for his great benefactor, the person behind his rise to whatever he is rising to, the one helping him fill his expectations, hasn't been Miss Havishman, but it has been a convict, and Pip is horrified. I guess Pip isn't as great as he thought he was. He now knows that Miss Havisham never intended he and Estella to some day be married.

"All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew. "

Our convict tells us more of his plans for Pip, making Pip more and more miserable.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman,—and, Pip, you’re him!”

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast."

Pip learns the truth of where his great expectations had come from: the convict had been sent to Australia, where he worked in sheep ranching. When his master had died he left the convct some money and he worked hard and earned a huge fortune. Moved by Pip’s kindness to him on the marsh, he arranged to use his wealth to make Pip a gentleman. All the money he made was put aside for Pip. The convict, not Miss Havisham, is Pip’s secret benefactor.

On top of that Pip hears that the convict is even now on the run from the law, his sentence had been a life sentence and in returning to England if found, he could be put to death. Pip realizes that though the convict’s story has plunged him into despair, it is his duty to help his benefactor.

"Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it would have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally and tenderly addressed my heart."

Pip gives him Herbert’s bed for the night, since Herbert is away. Pip sits for a long time after the convict has gone to sleep looking at the fire with these thoughts going through his mind:

"Miss Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to practise on when no other practice was at hand; those were the first smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,—it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, undo what I had done."

I will put my little "I still don't like Pip" comment here, when he tells us he can't go back to Joe or Biddy now, I am sure he wasn't intending to go back to them anyway. Thinking back to how he insisted he would be back often to visit Joe, I can't remember that he went once. I will let Pip end the chapter when he goes into the room and looks at the convict:

"He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the thick black darkness.

THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP’S EXPECTATIONS.

Sorry for the delay, maybe someone should remind me next time. ;-)

Kim wrote: "Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late than never I suppose and..."

Kim

Unlike Pip, who many of us cannot forgive for his character flaws, you will always be forgiven if you are ever late posting. No worries. :-))

On the topic of time .... (and my italics) as we come to the end of Chapter XIX which brings us to the end of the First Stage of Pip's Expectations we read "I was to leave our village at five in the morning carrying my little hand-portmanteau." ... Ah, yes, a little bag loaded down with great expectations and it is 5:00 a.m. And now we come to the end of the Second Stage of Pip's Expectations where we read "the Eastward churches were striking five the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and the rain intensified the thick black darkness." Pip's little bag loaded with expectations is now a sea chest of trouble. I do not think it mere chance that Pip's criminal was also introduced when Pip hears a " footstep on the stair" that is coming up towards Pip. Pip initially thinks it could be the sound of his dead sister coming towards him. The real visitor is far more frightening than his dead sister but is a figure from Pip's past. I am also not surprised that Pip notices that the criminal's "wet boot began to steam." Boots and feet again.

What a glorious and densely packed ending to a chapter and, of course, end of the second stage of Pip's expectations. First we have the troupe of time being incorporated. The first stage of Pip's expectations has him looking forward to the dawning of a new, better world, one where he will become a Midas and win the hand of a princess named Estella. The world is before him, so to speak.

Now, at the end of the second stage of his expectations, we see Dickens drawing together all the earlier symbols of the novel and turning them into different meanings. Over and over, we have seen Estella associated with candles. Candle light was the way she lead Pip through Satis House. Even the name Estella is associated with light. Further, we have seen in more than one instance how fire is associated with warmth, security, and industry. Pip was to be Joe's apprentice at the forge , a place of industry and fire. The comparison between the forge and Satis House has on more than one occasion been created through the presence of or lack of fire. Added to that we have Wemmick's castle where the Aged P happily toasts bread over the kitchen fire. All the symbols of industry and a happy home that are directly linked to fire are now dead.

The wind and the rain and the associative darkness of the night bring Pip's second stage of his expectations to a resounding halt. The promise of the new dawn at 5:00 a.m. at the end of the First Stage of Pip's Expectations has now been completely replaced. Pip's expectations are now in darkness.

Kim, I was actually asking myself whether I ought to remind you about the thread, but then again I remembered that there are several hours in between us, and I was not so sure if it was still Wednesday in Pennsylvania. Rest assured that next time, I will drop you a line.

Peter, you really have an eye for detail. I would never have noticed that both parts of Pip's great expectations end at 5 o' clock in the morning. In both situations, however, Pip is somewhat lonely. When he goes to London, he wonders why he cannot feel as happy as he had anticipated he would feel, and he has already distanced himself from Joe and Biddy; and now again, he is all on his own, thrown in with the convict, whom he is shocked to finally identify as his benefactor.

Like Kim, I still don't like Pip, and I detested him especially when he made that patronizing and holier-than-thou little speech to the convict, where he says things like

"[...] If you are grateful to me for what I did when I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by mending your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not necessary. [...]",

which make him sound almost like Pecksniff or Pumblechook. He also tries to hand some money to the convict in order to accelerate the leave-taking of his visitor. His ludicrous behaviour is capped when he points out to the convict that like him, he did very well - the only difference being that the convict worked for his money whereas Pip was actually given it. Be that as it may, Pip does show all his faulty character traits here.

At the same time, one cannot really say that the convict only acted out of gratefulness when he decided to use all his money to make a gentleman of Pip. His very words seem to imply that he takes the same strange joy and pride in making Pip as Miss Havisham took in making Estella. By making Pip a gentleman, he seems to put himself above all the colonists who might have scorned the prisoner in him - and he even goes so far as to say that he actually owns a gentleman.

In other words, here he betrays his awareness of having made Pip his creature. - The prisoner is really a very ambivalent character.

Tristram wrote: "Kim, I was actually asking myself whether I ought to remind you about the thread, but then again I remembered that there are several hours in between us, and I was not so sure if it was still Wedne..."

Yes. You are so right. Pip is Dickens's most complicated character to date. There are so many ways to approach him. I very much like how you pointed out how lonely he is at the end of the first two stages of his expectations. I think much could be made Of this insight.

I agree that his patronizing speech is horrid. It is interesting, and I think both informative and revealing, that Pip thinks that money can solve or excuse a person's behaviour. Whether it is a barrel of oysters or cash, Pip seems to think he can pay his way out of every situation. Will he ever learn that money has a place in life, and how, and even why it is spend or given speaks volumes about the person who has the funds.

"I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it"

Chapter 39

F. A. Fraser

1877

Text Illustrated:


“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your income since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?”

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him.

“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have been some guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As to the first letter of that lawyer’s name now. Would it be J?”

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.

“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and might be Jaggers,—put it as he had come over sea to Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. ‘However, you have found me out,’ you says just now. Well! However, did I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for particulars of your address. That person’s name? Why, Wemmick.”

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to be suffocating,—I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I shuddered at, very near to mine."

"Gradually I slipped from the chair, and lay on the floor"

Chapter 39

F. A. Fraser

1877

Text Illustrated:

"He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the thick black darkness."

On the stairs

Chapter 39

F. W. Pailthorpe

1900

"I stood with my lamp held out over the stairwell, and he came slowly within its light."

Text Illustrated:

“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out, looking down.

“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.

“What floor do you want?”

“The top. Mr. Pip.”

“That is my name.—There is nothing the matter?”

“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came on.

I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me."

Pip and Magwich

Chapter 39

Charles Green

1877

Text Illustrated:

"He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant of me, biting a long end of it. “I think,” he answered, still with the end at his mouth and still observant of me, “that I will drink (I thank you) afore I go.”

There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum and water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look at me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his neckerchief between his teeth—evidently forgotten—made my hand very difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with amazement that his eyes were full of tears.

Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt a touch of reproach. “I hope,” said I, hurriedly putting something into a glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, “that you will not think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!”

"He . . . steadily looked at me"

Chapter 39

H. M. Brock

1903

Text Illustrated:

“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?”

“How?”

“Ah!”

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only now that I began to tremble."

"Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips"

Chapter 39

A. A. Dixon

1905

Collin's Edition

Text Illustrated:

"Look'ee here!" he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too," turning his eyes round the room, "mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And you read 'em; don’t you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in foreign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did."

Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me.

"Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after again drawing his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well remembered — and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much in earnest; "you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this, as I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?"

"O no, no, no," I returned, "Never, never!"

Commentary:

"American illustrator Felix O. C. Darley's treatment of both the convict and his adopted son in this "reunion" scene is far more subtle than that of A. A. Dixon in the 1905 Collins' Pocket Edition, in which the illustrator depicts both the youth's extreme aversion at having physical contact with the convict, and the older man's beseeching look of devotion. However, despite the melodramatic overtones, Dixon's modeling of the figures and detailing of Pip's somewhat cluttered study (full of books and indications of affluence such as the furnishings and portrait on the wall) are as convincing as Darley's, although the 1905 lithograph lacks the sharpness and selectivity of the 1861 photogravure plate with its subtle effects of interior lighting and the emphasis on the contrast between the young, fashionably dressed Pip and the older, rough-and-ready traveler from Australia."

Pip has a visitor by night

Edward Ardizzone

1939

Commentary:

"In the thirty-ninth chapter of the Heritage Edition (1939) of Great Expectations, the twentieth-century British illustrator and World War II War Office artist Edward Ardizzone crosses the line between illustrating the text and substantially changing the reader's apprehension of the narrative. With Herbert conveniently absent on business in France, Pip holds up his "light" (in the text, a reading lamp; in the chapter heading vignette, a candle) as a figure in a great coat and top hat ascends the stairs, his back towards us. Thus, the graphic artist has translated the first-person into a dramatic perspective, visualizing for the viewer-reader the action as if it is being enacted upon the stage. Although Dickens does not so specify, the artist has depicted Pip in a dressing gown in the pen-and-ink thumbnail sketch. The candle held aloft serves as an emblem of Pip's impending enlightenment about the source and nature of his "great expectations." So far, then, the pictorial text and the letter-press are consistent.

However, in the full-page watercolor illustration, Ardizzone prepares the reader for the fact that Pip's convict is being followed. Ardizzone prepares the reader for the fact that the convict is being followed.

Clever as this gambit on the part of the illustrator may seem, it challenges the hegemony of the text, implying that the artist knows more (or is prepared to disclose more) than the narrator of the text. Had Dickens been alive to vet his illustrator's productions, he would almost have certainly vetoed the intrusion of the clandestine "lurker on the stairs" (Ch. 40). The novelist would have insisted upon the right to control the reader's responses and to use Pip exclusively as the vehicle for unfolding the secrets of the narrative. However, with the novelist safely out of the way, the modern illustrator may safely satisfy himself as to the handling of the visual complement in relation to its nineteenth-century letterpress."

Since Dickens was not alive to veto the illustration, I have held back much of this commentary, which gives away much of the story, and will post the entire commentary when we know what is happening by Dickens telling us.

Kim wrote: ""I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it"

I interpreted this as Pip putting the chair between himself and the convict. Fraser makes it look like quite a friendly encounter.

Kim. So many interpretations. Thank you.

Green and Brock get my vote of the "best of" for this chapter but I confess none of them really fired my imagination. Somehow, I got the feeling from reading the chapter that Pip's criminal, while dressed better than when we first met him on the marshes, still looked rather rough around the edges.

It's interesting how our mind conjures up an image and we then respond to what we see in an image by what we imagine.

Tristram wrote: "His ludicrous behaviour is capped when he points out to the convict that like him, he did very well - the only difference being that the convict worked for his money whereas Pip was actually given it. Be that as it may, Pip does show all his faulty character traits here.."

Yes, that was pretty insulting. Well, not pretty, very insulting. And Pip is so disgusted that he can't even express sincere gratitude. Well, Pip, give back all the rest of the money if it stinks up your nostrils so, and go back to the forge and live an honest life in future.

But he won't. That's not who he has become, if it is who he ever was.

I'm with you. I don't like Pip, and I don't see any indication of redemption or maturity. Quite the opposite.

Tristram wrote: "His very words seem to imply that he takes the same strange joy and pride in making Pip as Miss Havisham took in making Estella."

Yes, that is a powerful parallel, isn't it? Two young people made by two people unrelated to them who they decide to control for their own purposes.

Everyman wrote: "Tristram wrote: "His very words seem to imply that he takes the same strange joy and pride in making Pip as Miss Havisham took in making Estella."

Yes, that is a powerful parallel, isn't it? Two y..."

It certainly out-Herods Herod, or out-Franksteins Frankenstein, but nevertheless, I think that the convict's motives are less base than Miss Havisham's because he also seems to have been moved to his plan by gratitude, saying that Pip was the only one who stood by him when everyone else was against him. He does not consider that Pip, being but a child, was probably too intimidated and afraid to have doublecrossed him, but maybe that is also because the convict needs the idea that not everybody partook in persecuting him. So, while there is a lot of self-serving in the convict's generosity, it is not as full of venom and egocentrism as Miss Havisham's treatment of Estella.

My favourite illustrations this week are, like Peter's, those by Green and Brock - especially for the simple reason that both artists give a representation of the convict that goes with what I imagine him to be like. He is a man who has shown a lot of perseverance, a hard-working man with determination and stamina - and I don't see that kind of man in Dixon's kneeling figure, who looks more like a Grandfather Trent to me. Green's convict also has that fixed and absent-minded stare that I would attribute to somebody who has slaved away in Australia with the firm purpose to "make" a gentleman in London, and who never paused and dithered in his enterprise. Dixon also manages to put a very disgusted, and also fearful, look on Pip's face, and he puts Pip in the shadow, which could symbolize his expectations having suddenly lost their glory and brightness for him. There is one little detail that spoils Brock's illustration slightly for me - namely the way the convict puts his foot on the grate. Would he not dislocate his joints in doing it like it's shown in the illustration?

Tristram wrote: "I think that the convict's motives are less base than Miss Havisham's because he also seems to have been moved to his plan by gratitude, saying that Pip was the only one who stood by him when everyone else was against him. He does not consider that Pip, being but a child, was probably too intimidated and afraid to have doublecrossed him, but maybe that is also because the convict needs the idea that not everybody partook in persecuting him. ."

One spark of light in the world that needs to be cherished and fed to become a beacon of hope?

Perhaps also it's worth considering that every human needs hope in something. If you're slaving away in the gold fields of Australia, far from home and destined never to return except on pain of death, it may have been necessary for him to have held out for himself the belief that there was something of value for him to cherish outside of himself. Somewhat, perhaps, the way a prisoner in the most vile durance may befriend a mouse or even a cockroach just to have something to give meaning to their life.

Everyman wrote: "Perhaps also it's worth considering that every human needs hope in something. If you're slaving away in the gold fields of Australia, far from home and destined never to return except on pain of de..."

Excellent point. I agree with your theory and how it could be applied to Magwitch.

Everyman wrote: "Perhaps also it's worth considering that every human needs hope in something. If you're slaving away in the gold fields of Australia, far from home and destined never to return except on pain of de..."

How terrible it would be to have no hope. I wonder if it ever happens. You've just given me a reason why cockroaches and mice are here. That's the only one I've found so far.

Everyman wrote: "Tristram wrote: "I think that the convict's motives are less base than Miss Havisham's because he also seems to have been moved to his plan by gratitude, saying that Pip was the only one who stood ..."

Indeed, the convict may well have needed that kind of proof of human good that he supposed to find in Pip in order not to completely lose his own touch with humanity.

Thanks for posting all these illustrations, Kim! They are quite hard to find, and vary so much they're well worth examining. I can't say I particularly take to any of these though.

Oh my - the convict is Pip's benefactor! Well, I certainly did not see this coming at all.

I also still do not like Pip, I was surprised by his horror and inability to show any sort of gratitude to the person who gave him his living. Of course, I suppose he has all these emotions of realizing that Estella was not meant for him, that Miss Havisham was not molding him into a gentleman in preparation to be with Estella, and he's probably wondering why Miss Havisham is bothering with him at all. But, there was not a sliver of gratitude, even for show.

It was also interesting to see the convict's view of making Pip a gentleman, his satisfaction as "owning his own gentleman".



(I'm sorry, friends! I've been a terrible Curiosity lately, not reading GE or commenting for entire month of April. I have the same excuse as before, just busy with life and not getting the time to read and write posts. Lately most of my book consumption has been listening to audiobooks, so GE has been waiting in the wings. Trying to get back to it this week, though.)

Linda wrote: "Oh my - the convict is Pip's benefactor! Well, I certainly did not see this coming at all.

I also still do not like Pip, I was surprised by his horror and inability to show any sort of gratitude ..."

Linda

You were missed but we muddled on. Good to see your posts. Life does get in the way of reading at times.

I think I'm the lonely voice in the wilderness who is championing Pip. Surely (?) Dickens would not want his protagonist to be unlikeable at the end of a novel. Can he turn Pip into another David Copperfield by the end of the novel? I'm getting nervous as we approach the end of the novel.

I too have been surprised that Pip has remained unlikeable for the such a large part of the novel!

Well, I think I'm having a hard time distinguishing between simply not liking Pip and cringing or being embarrassed by some of his actions. I certainly liked him earlier on in the book, and when he had his learning sessions with Joe.

Now that I think of this, what comes to mind are certain instances of my own children's behavior. They are young and can be selfish at times and unthinking, and it takes me or their father to point out these acts and try to correct their ways so that they grow up to be more respectful and thinking of others. And just because they've acted in a certain way doesn't make me love them any less. Sometimes they just need a little more guidance.

Still, Pip is not my own child, so my first reaction when he acts selfishly is to say that I don't like him overall.

Peter wrote: "Life does get in the way of reading at times."

Only when you let your priorities get mixed up!

Linda wrote: "Still, Pip is not my own child, so my first reaction when he acts selfishly is to say that I don't like him overall. ."

And he didn't have a mother to give him the unconditional love you gave yours. Joe's the only one he has to love him that way, and he's turned away from Joe.

Everyman wrote: "Joe's the only one he has to love him that way, and he's turned away from Joe."

That sounds so sad. Poor Joe, even poor Pip, what has he done.

I am also surprised at the lack of gratitude Pip feels for his benefactor. In a way, not only is he not grateful but he is absolutely horrified of having been supported by an ex-convict. Now one has to ask oneself if this is only because Magwitch was a convicted felon or because Pip saw all his castles in the air concerning Miss Havisham and her intending him for Estella shattered. Maybe, the latter disappointment also adds to Pip's feelings of dismay and horror because he has so long cherished the idea of finally being united with Estella, courtesy of Miss Havisham.

On the other hand, we should not forget that Magwitch did not act completely unselfishly. As Linda said, he has the impression, and voices it, that he "owns" a gentleman, and I think this is just his own way of taking revenge on those who kept him down all his life. When he builds up Pip as a gentleman, this is partly out of recognition for Pip's services and his loyalty ( a loyalty, of course, which was also instilled in him by threats and intimidation), but it is also Magwitch's living vicariously through Pip and triumphing over his surroundings in building up the boy that is at the root of his generosity.

Yes. GE is giving us many more angles by which to view and interpret the characters and events. The novel is a more mature one. The predictability of characters, both the round and the flat ones, is never set in stone.

Great stuff.

Peter wrote: "Kim wrote: "Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late than never I..."

Five in the morning...Striking five
What a great catch, Peter! I didn't notice this...Nice!

Boots and feet again.
Peter, Pip and Herbert (I think he was there) went to watch a small theater production where "curious incidents" take place and are brought to our attention. One of those details is a mentioning of "ancient/ancestral boots...leather boots..." Do we think this was a foreshadowing of Magwitch's arrival?

Now, at the end of the second stage of his expectations, we see Dickens drawing together all the earlier symbols of the novel and turning them into different meanings. Over and over, we have seen Estella associated with candles. Candle light was the way she lead Pip through Satis House. Even the name Estella is associated with light...All the symbols of industry and a happy home that are directly linked to fire are now dead.
I no longer feel she is a source of light in Pip's life as she is becoming more of a symbol of hope for him in my eyes. If Estella is the light that enables Pip to navigate his own feelings for her, then her light didn't formally shine on him until the previous chapter with that "warning" she gave him. When I think of light, I think warmth, comfort and happiness; however, Pip does not experience any of this when in her company. It's quite the opposite, actually. You are right, "all the symbols of industry and a happy home that are directly linked to fire are now dead." The symbols are much different now.

Tristram wrote: "Kim, I was actually asking myself whether I ought to remind you about the thread, but then again I remembered that there are several hours in between us, and I was not so sure if it was still Wedne..."

Like Kim, I still don't like Pip, and I detested him especially when he made that patronizing and holier-than-thou little speech to the convict, where he says things like...which make him sound almost like Pecksniff or Pumblechook. He also tries to hand some money to the convict in order to accelerate the leave-taking of his visitor.
I have often thought Pip's likeness to Pumblechook was rather close considering how both men embrace being pompous quite well, unfortunate as the similarity is. I remember thinking this way in Chapters 18-19, when Pip comes into his fortune...He becomes callous and condescending to those around him once he notices, in the tailor's place of business, the difference in treatment those who have means receive-An eye opening moment for Pip, I think. It might have also been the moment where he realized money was power?

By making Pip a gentleman, he seems to put himself above all the colonists who might have scorned the prisoner in him - and he even goes so far as to say that he actually owns a gentleman. In other words, here he betrays his awareness of having made Pip his creature. - The prisoner is really a very ambivalent character.
I found it curious the parallel between Miss Havisham making a heart breaking lady out of Estella, and Magwitch the convict making a gentleman out of Pip. We see how it has turned out for Miss Havisham in the previous chapter, but how will it end for Magwitch and Pip, I did wonder.

By the way, Magwitch as Pip's benefactor? Did anybody have any inkling as to this happening? I've read this, so I was aware; but when I first read it, I remember being floored by it!!!

Kim wrote: "Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late than never I suppose and..."

An old sailor enters Pip’s apartment, Pip treats him nervously and haughtily being confused as to why this man seemed so delighted to see him. When Pip finally gets a good look at him he recognizes him, it is Pip’s convict.
I think Pip was not only scared of this strange man in his home, but reconizing him as his convict petrified Pip; and then learning his convict had been his benefactor all this time, well, it horrified him. I understand why Pip is horrified; granted it's his own fault for having the loft expectations Miss Havisham was his benefactor, it must have felt like a real slap in the face to know the benefactor was his convict from the marshes...The very convict who scared the tar out of him as a child. That moment in the marshes, the emotional scars left by the convict on a poor impressionable child, seem to run much deeper than I gave Pip credit for...That experience now is immeasurable, in my eyes, in how it must have affected Pip as a child. Magwitch, I wonder if he didn't come on quite so strongly and affectionately, if maybe Pip would have treated him differently with a changed tone in voice and gesture? I didn't like reading Pip was haughty to Magwitch, but given the circumstances, I didn't expect anything different from Pip.

Ami wrote: "Kim wrote: "Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late than never I..."

I never thought of it before but there is a little twist in the observations. Pip sees Magwitch as his convict and Magwitch sees Pip as You're my son.

Peter wrote: "Ami wrote: "Kim wrote: "Hello all,

I just realized that I hadn't posted the new installment. Not only did I not post it, but I wondered why Tristram hadn't posted it yet. :-) Oh well, better late ..."

Yes, exactly, Peter. Taking this into account and the antipodal emotional forces at play, it's understandable they were not on a level playing field. The shock of it all on Pip's end, I wouldn't doubt would have him revert to thoughts and feelings elicited by his convict/Magwitch in the marshes. Again, I didn't like Pip's tone or pompous air, but even in the marshes while his convict/Magwitch was eating vittles with a voracious appetite, Pip did see a vulnerable human quality in him, and there are moments in the present where notices he notices softer sides to Magwitch's countenance.