The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Dear Curiosities,

I know I'm early with this thread, but we are singing at a nursing home tomorrow evening and I just realized I haven't practiced a thing on the new program, for some reason I thought we were still singing the old one. I'll probably need all the extra time I can get tomorrow to get ready by it's time to go.

Anyway, we have arrived at Chapter 53 and Pip arrives back at his childhood home. Of course he arrives on a dark night, if it wouldn't have been dark we would have needed rain, fog or cold.

It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud.

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my inclination, I went on against it.


Don't you just love the description of the place? We have a dark night, mountains of clouds covering the moon, a melancholy wind, and dismal marshes. I can picture it so well, and I can't think of a Dickens novel right now that is ever bright, sunny and warm.

On arriving at the sluice house Pip enters and sees a table with a lighted candle on it, a bench, and a mattress, but no one seems to be there. Trying to decide what to do he walks outside and finds that now it is raining (of course) and he goes back inside. On entering he is attacked by someone and finds quickly that his arms are pulled close to his sides by a rope that had been thrown over his head is now around his body.

The burnt arm being held in the rope causes him great pain and he is feeling faint and sick. Finally he is tied to the wall and the unknown attacker relights the candle that had gone out at the start of all this. This left me wondering how he saw to tie Pip up in the first place. We then find that the man behind the attack is Orlick. He has hated Pip all these years and now intends to let Pip go "to the moon and to the stars". He is greatly enjoying the idea of him being the one to end Pip's life. So I am left wondering "What did Pip do to cause Orlick so much that Orlick would want to kill him?". So I dediced to go on a search to find out what happened to cause Orlick's hatred of Pip. From what I remember of the beginning of the book young Pip didn't seem to have much to do with Orlick when he was a child, although Pip does tell us that Orlick hated him even then. Back in Chapter 16 he told us:

"This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and timid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe’s ‘prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did anything, openly importing hostility; I only noticed that he always beat his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came in out of time."

This was long before Pip was the one who made Orlick lose his job with Miss Havisham, although I don't remember much about it. Only that he told Jaggers he didn't think Orlick was the right man for that job. The beginning of chapter 30 we're told:

"After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick’s being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. “Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,” said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, “because the man who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.” It seemed quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was not exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a satisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. “Very good, Pip,” he observed, when I had concluded, “I’ll go round presently, and pay our friend off.”

Whatever his reasons, he has developed a hatred so strong that he looking forward to ending Pip's life. And we learn now from Orlick's own lips that he is the one who caused the death of Pip's sister:

“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick’s a going to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.”

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.

“It was you, villain,” said I.

“I tell you it was your doing,—I tell you it was done through you,” he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the vacant air between us. “I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you to-night. I giv’ it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come to life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was favored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.” "

On first reading this I wondered when it was that Pip was favored, he seemed as bullied as Orlick was. But Pip had Joe, that would have made it better. He goes on to say that he knows about Pip's supposed uncle. He makes it clear that he knows Pip has no uncle and that not only does he know that this "uncle" is Magwitch but also that Pip is planning to "smuggle" his uncle away. Once Orlick is done taunting Pip he arises from the table and picks up a large hammer. Pip, knowing he must do something does the only thing left for him to do:

"The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the night."

Pip's rescuers are Herbert, Startop, and Trabb's boy. Herbert tells Pip that he had found the note Pip had received from Orlick laying on the floor of their chambers. This note made him uneasy, especially after reading the letter Pip left for him. Seeing the messages were so different he decides to follow him and Startop, who had been there when he found the both letters agrees to go along. Arriving at the Blue Boar Trapp's boy - or Trapp's young man by now - agreesto take them to the place mentioned in the note, and they arrive just as they heard Pip's loud call. While Herbert wants to go to the magistrate right away, Pip wants to go back to London and get ready for getting Magwitch safely away. Back in London Pip feels he is getting sick and tries to fight it, knowing that the next day is when they will attempt their escape, or Magwitch's escape anyway.

"Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well.

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still flowing towards us.

“When it turns at nine o’clock,” said Herbert, cheerfully, “look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!”

Pip and Orlick....

~As the passage above states, Orlick always seemed to think Pip was favored (nepotism, I guess). Remember when Pip wanted a day off and Orlick argued that he, too, should get a day off?

~Orlick was jealous of Pip's relationship with Biddy, and ticked off that Pip came between Biddy and himself (never mind the fact that Biddy had no interest in Orlick to begin with!).

~As, Kim mentions, Pip then was instrumental in getting Orlick dismissed from Miss Havisham.

So Orlick had a grudge, but does it warrant murder? Of course not, but obviously Orlick is a violent guy with entitlement issues. Ironically, Orlick is continuing to prove that Pip was right to mistrust him. Humans are their own worst enemies.

As to Orlick seeing in the dark, I imagine he'd been lying in wait for some time, and his eyes had adjusted enough to do what was necessary.

Thank you, Kim, for your excellent summary as usual. It helps me so much as my memory leaves a lot to be desired.

I hadn't even tried to work out the reasons for tension between Orlick and Pip. But of course, Mary Lou,, I had forgotten about Orlick's having taken a shine to Biddy. Poor Pip with his burnt arms. What an excruciating thought to be tied up over burnt flesh. That really was adding insult to injury in quite a literal way! In fairness to Pip he got the burns while trying to save Miss Havisham, so there's a sense that he is turning over a new leaf.

Also, I hadn't realised that Orlick had escaped. That had escaped me.:D. So he's still at large. Not good! Not good!

Kim wrote: "Don't you just love the description of the place? We have a dark night, mountains of clouds covering the moon, a melancholy wind, and dismal marshes."

Yes, it's a wonderful description, especially the part about the moon being briefly visible in its garish red light - although, frankly, the first sentence sobered me up for a second because it sounds so much like Bulwer-Lytton's famous beginning of Paul Clifford. The scene depicted here is a classic villain scene, i.e. Orlick deems himself the master of the situation and now, like any other decent villain in fiction, he not simply destroys Pip but starts a little speech about why he is going to do so, which has a double function - firstly, it makes us realize how often Orlick has appeared under the surface of events, e.g. as the man lurking on the stairs, and secondly, more importantly for Pip, it gives Herbert time to come to the rescue. In Dickens, however, this is not simply a clumsy plot device, as we so often find it with lesser fiction, because Dickens even manages to build up suspense on it - through the bottle of spirits that Orlick drains while he is making his resentful speech. Dickens makes all this crystal-clear in one spine-chilling sentence:

"I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life."

Interestingly, one of the people Pip owes his life is none other but Trabb's boy, but even now Pip cannot find it in himself to forbear any disparaging remarks about his saviour:

"[W]e deemed it prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am convinced, would have been much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s expense."

Surely, Pip could have shown a bit more gratitude - but at least, he lets him have two guineas, which is pretty much the same amount of money Pip got from the mysterious convict in the Three Jolly Bargemen, by the way.

Tristram wrote: "Surely, Pip could have shown a bit more gratitude"

I thought the same thing. The poor guy helps save Pip's life and Pip still can't bring himself to say something nice about the guy. I am not at all convinced Trabb's boy was disappointed in Pip being saved.

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Surely, Pip could have shown a bit more gratitude"

I thought the same thing. The poor guy helps save Pip's life and Pip still can't bring himself to say something nice about the g..."

I think of Trabb's boy as being a decent sort but, as Pip says, "vivacious". I don't think of him as having anything against Pip specifically, but just saw someone to have some fun with. So I doubt he'd truly want to see Orlick who's truly evil, get the better of Pip, who was just a bit full of himself. Pip, though, as is so often the case, can never forget being made fun of and having his ego bruised.

Tristram wrote: "Surely, Pip could have shown a bit more gratitude [to Traub's boy]."

Don't you know by now that gratitude is not one of Pip's virtues? When has he ever shown real gratitude to anybody? But his dismissal of Traub's boy is yet another demonstration that if he is to be redeemed, it isn't yet. And there's not much book to go!

Tristram wrote: "he lets him have two guineas..."

i.e., he treats him as a servant, an inferior.

Well, that was a surprise. I never suspected it would be Orlick. Maybe I should have because early on we were told that he had a home by the sluice house -- back in Chapter 15 we were told "He lodged at a sluice-keeper’s out on the marshes." But that it was Orlick on the stairs the night that Magwitch first came was a big surprise, at least to me.

The episode wasn't as scary as it could have been because of the first person narrator; we knew he had to survive to tell the tale, so it wasn't a matter of whether he would get saved, but only of how.

Herbert and Startop showing up to rescue him is pretty unrealistic, but Dickens had to get him saved somehow (myself, I thought it was going to be Joe out for a walk on the marshes, which also would have been unrealistic but perhaps somewhat less so). But it was written to be as exciting as it could, given that we knew he had to survive.

My first thoughts - what did Pip do to deserve such hatred of Orlick? I really could not remember. Like Kim, I couldn't remember Pip being favored by sister at all. Mary Lou, thank you for jogging my memory about Pip's day off, and I had also forgotten about Orlick fancying Biddy.

As to the rescue, like Everyman I also thought it was going to be Joe to come and save Pip. And when it was instead Herbert, I wondered how on Earth did he know to go there? After all the secrecy and letter burning throughout the book, it was very convenient to then have Pip drop the letter that he was supposed to have brought along with him. Did Pip ever wonder why he was supposed to have brought the note in the first place? I did. :)

Everyman wrote: "Tristram wrote: "he lets him have two guineas..."

i.e., he treats him as a servant, an inferior."

Yes, that was certainly disappointing. Especially since, while thinking he was doomed to die, all the thoughts he had just had that the people he left behind would only think of him and his bad qualities - that he had either deserted them (Herbert), or that he would not have had the chance to say he was sorry for his past actions (Joe and Biddy).

I also wondered that Pip and Herbert thought they could hush matters up to Trabb's boy, making light of the deadly attack by Orlick. Would not Trabb's boy, who has often shown signs of keener perception (just remember what a good impersonation of Pip he gave!) than Pip himself be able to put one and one together on seeing Pip bound and Orlick in a frenzy?

And yes, having a first-person-narrator tell a story in which he himself is in danger always suffers from the knowledge that after all the narrator is telling his story, which he could not do, had he not somehow managed to extricate himself from the dangerous situation. Except, maybe, if the narrator later turns out to be a ghost. Pip, for instance, could be the Ghost of Gratefulness Yet to Come.

I heartily enjoyed Kim's opening comments. What other kind of night could it have been except a dark and stormy night ... oh, perhaps not those specific words since, as Tristram has commented, they had already been used by Bulwer-Lytton in 1830, but, nevertheless, it was an unpleasant night to be alone in a creepy place.

When Pip asks "What are you going to do with me?" Orlick' answer is certainly brief and to the point - "I'm going to have your life." This revelation triggers Pip to think "The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death." Here we have the mature and clearly reflective Pip commenting on a central point of his life. Pip has at this point experienced severe pain on more than one occasion, but clearly understands that one enduring physical pain is not as horrid as the mental pain of being "misremembered after death."

We are witnessing here the beginning of a major sea-change in Pip's life. Rough and ragged as it will be, Pip now is in a place of reflection on other's opinions of himself. Recall that his desire to help Herbert has been done in absolute secrecy. Pip has no desire to be praised for his kind actions towards Herbert. In this chapter, however, Dickens brings to the surface, through the confrontation with Orlick, a part of Pip's past. In order to mature, to accept his faults, to acknowledge his place in the world and to be able to move forward Pip must put his past in order. Orlick represents a major part of Pip's past. Pip's sister, Pip's work at the forge, Pip initially getting preferential treatment from Joe and receiving a day off reflect Pip's time at the forge. Orlick is connected with Pip's time at Miss Havisham's as well. It is symbolic that Pip encounters Orlick at Miss Havisham's and Orlick acts as a gatekeeper to Pip, thus allowing Pip access to Miss Havisham. Pip is the agent through which Orlick is dismissed from Miss Havisham's employment. Orlick appears again and is connected to Drummle, the man who marries Pip's heart's desire Estella. The lump at the bottom of Pip's staircase is Orlick. We remember how staircases formed such a key symbol as people ascended them to enter into Pip's life. Now, upon reflection, we can see how Dickens has employed the staircase as a symbol with even greater effect since Pip had descended the staircase towards the unknown Orlick.

Orlick comments "You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child." I would suggest that Dickens has framed the character of Orlick as a representative of Pip's dark and murky subconscious. Pip and his feelings towards his sister, Pip wanting access to Miss Havisham symbolized by Orlick unlocking the door to Miss Havisham, Pip's dislike of Drummle, Pip's desire to marry Estella, Pip's secret of harbouring Magwitch, indeed even the leg iron used to kill Pip's sister are all connected to Orlick. In Jungian terms, Orlick is the manifestation of Pip's shadow.

It is perhaps a rather lucky circumstance that Trabb's boy happened to meet Startop and Herbert and thus lead them to the kiln. However, as Tristram has reminded us, It was Trabb's boy who did, on three separate times one day, an excellent impression of Pip. Thus, who else would be as suited to help rescue Pip as someone who could mimic Pip's silly self-importance.

This chapter brings much of Pip's past to bear on Pip's present self. Still ahead is how to deal with Magwitch, Estella and Joe. We shall see ...

Linda wrote: " Especially since, while thinking he was doomed to die, all the thoughts he had just had that the people he left behind would only think of him and his bad qualities - that he had either deserted them (Herbert), or that he would not have had the chance to say he was sorry for his past actions (Joe and Biddy)."

Does this suggest that Dickens will sucker into a smarmy ending and have Pip suddenly go back to Joe and Biddy to say he was sorry for his past actions?

If he does, I warn Peter beforehand, I won't believe it. The Road to Damascus experience may work when it's Jesus, but not when it's Orlick.

And speaking of Orlick, I think letting him go will turn out to be a big mistake. Big, big mistake.

Peter wrote: "I would suggest that Dickens has framed the character of Orlick as a representative of Pip's dark and murky subconscious. "

Hmm. Dickens as pre-Freudian?

Were any of Orlick's hostilities against Pip genuine? Certainly it appears that Joe favored Pip at the forge, and perhaps but for Pip Biddy might have looked on Orlick more favorably. If Pip did indeed wrong Orlick, even if inadvertently, is Orlick one of the people Pip should now be apologizing to? Or does the incident in the sluice house make them even?

Tristram wrote: "Except, maybe, if the narrator later turns out to be a ghost."

I was just thinking that as I read your post. :)

Pip, for instance, could be the Ghost of Gratefulness Yet to Come.

Ha!

Everyman wrote: "Were any of Orlick's hostilities against Pip genuine?"

No, not that I can see. Especially not to the extent that Orlick went, wanting to go so far as to murder Pip!

It seems to me that from Orlick's perspective, he saw Pip as someone who had more than Orlick himself had - the attentions of Biddy, Joe's kindness, perhaps youth? I don't know what else. And Pip was just someone who he could take his frustrations out on about his life's lot. Otherwise, Orlick's extreme hatred of Pip doesn't make sense to me.

Here we go with the illustrations, and there are a lot of them. Almost everyone with a pen, pencil, or brush in their hand illustrated this chapter.



On the Marshes, approaching the Lime-kiln

Chapter 53

F. A. Fraser

Text Illustrated:

"It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was burning with a sluggish stiffling smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone quarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were left lying about."

Commentary

"As Dickens's protagonist approaches the isolated lime-kiln on the Marshes, the gloomy atmosphere in this "dark plate" makes the reader apprehensive about Pip's safety. Although this scene is suddenly fraught with tension and as Pip's brush with death marks the beginning of his epiphany, few illustrators have dealt with it, despite the fact that Dickens's chosen illustrator, Marcus Stone, devoted one of his eight wood engravings to this moment in On the Marshes, by the Lime-kiln in the first British illustrated edition."

On the Marshes, by the Lime-kiln

Chapter 53

Marcus Stone

1862

Text Ilustrated:

"It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud.

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my inclination, I went on against it.

The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart; so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright specks.

At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I seemed to have the whole flats to myself.

It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were lying about.

Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,—for the rude path lay through it,—I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house—of wood with a tiled roof—would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. No answer still, and I tried the latch."

"'Do you know this?' said he."

Chapter 53

by F. A. Fraser

1877

An illustration for the Household Edition

Text Illustrated:

"The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending over the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and showed me Orlick.

Whom I had looked for, I don’t know. I had not looked for him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,—a fixture there,—the means of ascent to the loft above.

“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, “I’ve got you.”

“Unbind me. Let me go!”

“Ah!” he returned, “I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go to the moon, I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good time.”

“Why have you lured me here?”

“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look.

“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”

“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two. O you enemy, you enemy!”

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound stock.

“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim at me. “Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!”

“Yes,” I answered."

"Pip in the Power of Dolge Orlick"

Chapter 53

Harry Furniss

1910

Text Illustrated:

“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other beast,—which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,—I’ll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!”

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my miserable errors,—still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I would have done it.

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw flash into his face.

“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick’s a going to tell you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.”

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death, before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.

“It was you, villain,” said I.

“I tell you it was your doing,—I tell you it was done through you,” he retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the vacant air between us. “I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you to-night. I giv’ it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn’t have come to life again. But it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was favored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.”

"'Do you know this?,' said he"

Chapter 53

Charles Green

c. 1877

Text Illustrated:

“Unbind me. Let me go!”

“Ah!” he returned, “I’ll let you go. I’ll let you go to the moon, I’ll let you go to the stars. All in good time.”

“Why have you lured me here?”

“Don’t you know?” said he, with a deadly look.

“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”

“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two. O you enemy, you enemy!”

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a brass-bound stock.

“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim at me. “Do you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!”

“Yes,” I answered.

Commentary:

"In The Household Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens (1870s) the artist F. A. Fraser provides a plate with the identical caption, but Green's in the Gadshill Edition of 1898 is more Baroque and less stage-like in composition, creating a moment of genuine apprehension for the viewer as Orlick (left) seems about to shoot the tied-up Pip (right) in Ch. 53.

The scene seems to accentuate the contrast of shadows in the foreground and the faces of the old adversaries through an emphasis on the candle, just right of centre. Its illumination complements Orlick's resolving for Pip and the reader the mystery of Mrs. Joe's attack much earlier in the novel. Green has made his Orlick far younger and less muscular (see also the fourth plate) in order to render him even visually Pip's double rather than the monster of Gothic tradition that so many other illustrators have envisaged.

Of the elements Dickens describes as being in the room ("a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead" and the ladder leading to the loft above), the artist has focused on the candle, on Pip's being trussed "tight to the wall" on the "stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall" and on the table that separates the pair. Although from the end visible we judge Orlick's bench a crude piece of furniture suitable to the vengeful and surly ex-journeyman blacksmith, the delicate gate-legged table seems markedly out of place--like the gentlemanly figure of Pip--in the old sluice-house."

Old Orlick Means Murder

Chapter 53

F. W. Pailthorpe

c. 1900

Text Illustrated:

“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick’s a match for you and know’d you’d come to-night! Now I’ll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There’s them that’s as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him ‘ware them, when he’s lost his nevvy! Let him ‘ware them, when no man can’t find a rag of his dear relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There’s them that can’t and that won’t have Magwitch,—yes, I know the name!—alive in the same land with them, and that’s had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave it unbeknown and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that writes fifty hands, and that’s not like sneaking you as writes but one. ‘Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!”

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again."

"'Ah!' he cried . . . 'the burnt child dreads the fire!"

Chapter 53

H. M. Brock

1903

Text Illustrated:

“You with a uncle too! Why, I know’d you at Gargery’s when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I’d thoughts o’ doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you hadn’t found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he means to drop you—hey?—when he come for to hear that—hey?”

In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my face aside to save it from the flame.

“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick’s a match for you and know’d you’d come to-night! Now I’ll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There’s them that’s as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him ‘ware them, when he’s lost his nevvy! Let him ‘ware them, when no man can’t find a rag of his dear relation’s clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There’s them that can’t and that won’t have Magwitch,—yes, I know the name!—alive in the same land with them, and that’s had such sure information of him when he was alive in another land, as that he couldn’t and shouldn’t leave it unbeknown and put them in danger. P’raps it’s them that writes fifty hands, and that’s not like sneaking you as writes but one. ‘Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!”

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an
instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again."

Thank you Kim. Wonderful variety in these illustrations. I like the Fraser and the Marcus Stone best. I note the commentary for the Fraser calls this moment the beginning of Pip's "epiphany" which I think is accurate. Without going too far into the dark corners of Jung or Freud let's just say I see whispers of what Stevenson explored in much more depth and in a different context a couple of decades later in Jeckyl and Hyde.

I like the Fraser illustration of Pip tied up. The characters look age-appropriate and Orlick looks drunk angry.

Pip in the Furniss illustration looks like he should be in his 40s, not 23. And Orlick in the Green illustration looks like he's 15 and hasn't had a drop to drink.

Kim wrote: "Hard by was a small stone quarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were left lying about."."

I'm surprised at that. Tools in that day and age were valuable things (often passed on from father to son), and generally taken good care of.

There are still 18th and 19th century tools in good use today. You can buy them in a number of places, including Ed Lebetkin's store at the Woodwright's Shop. Great old tools that have been taken care of sometimes for hundreds of years and still work perfectly well.

Reconstruction villages like Plimoth Plantation and Williamsburg still use these tools in their demonstration shops because they were taken real care of and not just tossed around the way tools often are today.

Plus, there were plenty of dishonest people floating around who could walk off with a tool and make good money selling it a few miles away. And it could cost a lot to replace it.

So I frankly doubt that workmen would really just drop their tools and leave them lying around.

Kim wrote: "Here we go with the illustrations, and there are a lot of them. Almost everyone with a pen, pencil, or brush in their hand illustrated this chapter."

Can't blame them. It's a very dramatic chapter.

Linda wrote: "Orlick in the Green illustration looks like he's 15 and hasn't had a drop to drink. "

I thought the same thing.

Everyman wrote: "So I frankly doubt that workmen would really just drop their tools and leave them lying around. "

I did not notice this incongruency while I was reading the chapter, but you are certainly right: Workmen would never have neglected their tools like that. I know that in Germany workmen, even if they were employed, e.g. in factories, sometimes had to buy the tools they needed with their own money - and this would have made them even more reluctant to leave them unattended at their workplace after going home.

As to your wonderful illustrations, Kim, I think I prefer the Pailthorpe one, for two reasons: It is about the only one where we can also see Pip struggle to get free of his fetters or at least ot offer some resistance to Orlick - and this is definitely mentioned in the text. My second reason is a more personal one: Pailthorpe's style reminds me, if not of Browne, at least of another illustrator that I connect with Dickens: Cruikshank.

Peter,

I really like your idea of a kind of Jungian relationship between Pip and Orlick, and all the examples you mentioned. It is, indeed, interesting that Orlick seems to be linked with basically all the important people in Pip's life, esp. with his antagonists, Drummle and Compeyson - and how he, like Compeyson, is more or less a sinister presence in the background.

I would not say, though, that Pip has reasons to apologize to Orlick, because after all, it was Orlick who killed his sister, his only motive being the grudge he held against her (and Pip) after Pip got his half-day off. Orlick says that by killing Mrs. Joe, he also wanted to lash out against Pip, and I think this is reason enough for saying that Pip had every right to interfere with Orlick's wooing Biddy. After all, he could not have wanted a presumptive murderer to become the sweetheart of a young girl like Biddy.

I am a bit skeptical about Pip's concern of being misremembered after death. After all, he has, as yet, not made any effort to improve his relationship with Joe and Biddy and to take the first step towards them. Everything else seems to be more important to him: Getting Magwitch out of the country or attending to him in his last days is surely a thing that has priority, but his constant visits at Satis House and his lingering desire to catch a glimpse at Estella, are those more important than Joe? His remorse is apparently not strong enough to lead him into action, and so, to put it bluntly and maybe also cruelly, he would actually not be misremembered by Joe and Biddy, if Orlick had managed to take his life.

Tristram wrote: "his constant visits at Satis House and his lingering desire to catch a glimpse at Estella, are those more important than Joe? ."

Obviously, to him they are. He doesn't even make an attempt to go and see Joe, or to send him a message saying he's coming to town and would Joe like to come in and see him. Nothing.

Let's not forget, however, that Pip once sent Joe a barrel of oysters as a stand-in for his own shining presence in the Gargery household, Everyman. However, if I remember Sam Weller correctly, oysters were not the choice treat they are today but were also available to the more modest households.

Tristram wrote: "However, if I remember Sam Weller correctly, oysters were not the choice treat they are today but were also available to the more modest households. "

Indeed, they were food for poor people.

Everyman wrote: "Tristram wrote: "his constant visits at Satis House and his lingering desire to catch a glimpse at Estella, are those more important than Joe? ."

Obviously, to him they are. He doesn't even make a..."

Do you suppose that the longer he stays away from Joe the less he feels the need to go see him? That seems to happen among people I know. One example I can think of is an older woman, now in her nineties, her son and his family don't live very close to her, but they don't live very far either. Just Maryland to Pennsylvania. A few months ago they made a promise that they would come home and visit her once a month. This went fine for a month or two, and then one month they just couldn't make the trip, something important came up. When the same thing happened a few months later, they were just too busy. Eventually no one asked anymore why they hadn't seen her that month and I don't think they give it a thought.

Kim wrote: "Do you suppose that the longer he stays away from Joe the less he feels the need to go see him? "

I think that happens as we get older, sometimes. But he's still young enough that I would have thought his appreciation should still have been strong. If he had any, which obviously he doesn't and never did since he became a gentleman.

BTW, I mentioned "became a gentleman" in my last post, but I've known gentlemen, and Pip, you are no gentleman.

Money does not automatically make a gentleman, especially not in mid-Victorian society. After all, Magwitch had more money than Pip (because he endowed Pip but also kept some money back, obviously, for his passage back to England, to pay Jaggers, who would not have provided his services for free, and probably for other purposes. But is anybody going to claim that Magwitch, because of his wealth alone, is a gentleman?

It takes more than money to be a gentleman. And whatever it takes, for my money, Pip doesn't have it and never will.

I think that it may not only depend on Pip's wish to see Joe and Biddy, but that Pip might also feel he has behaved so meanly towards these two that it is not very easy for him to look them into the eye. He might, by now, actually, want to see them but he simply is so ashamed that he puts the visit off. Apart from that, as I see it, his wish to see Estella or hear from her through Miss Havisham, is still stronger than his old feelings of loyalty towards his former friends.

As to the word "gentleman", I think that we maybe no longer use it the way Victorians did. In Victorian parlance, a gentleman was somebody who was not forced to work for his income, i.e. to sell goods or to receive payment for services rendered. As I read in Daniel Pool, a barrister was considered a gentleman, because he was never paid directly by his clients, but by the solicitor who used his services. Strictly speaking, a barristor could not even sue the solicitor for money if the latter chose not to pay him - because the official fiction was that the barristor did not charge any fee for his speaking in court.

This implied that a gentleman needed to have enough money to live a life befitting his rank.

In our more egalitarian day and age, we have probably come to stress the aspect of gentlemanly behaviour and codes of conduct, and would no longer hesitate to speak - if we use the old-fashioned term at all - of a salesman who is very honest as a gentleman.

Yes, concerning the word gentleman. We must remember that the novel was written in the early 1860's and so that is the sum and total of what was known and existed. We must not read history forward too casually. Naturally, we can look back and comment, or what would be the sense of reading?

A gentleman did not work. A gentleman could be a good or bad person, a moral or immoral person, but a gentleman was, whatever the adjective, a gentleman.

What I would suggest is to break up the portmanteau and look at the phrase "gentle man." Now Joe is a gentle man and Pumblechook is certainly not. Herbert and Startop are gentle men and Bentley Drummle is not. The work "gentle" does not carry any connotation of weakness or flaccidness; rather, gentle can be seen as containing either an inner or outer strength, and often both.

Is Pip a gentleman or a gentle man? Absolutely not. Well, not yet anyway.

Peter wrote: "Naturally, we can look back and comment, or what would be the sense of reading? "

By all means! That's the fun of reading good books, like Great Expectations over and over again, because it is interesting to see how one reacts to them in different phases of one's own life.

Tristram wrote: "Pip, for instance, could be the Ghost of Gratefulness Yet to Come. "

snort. :-D

I am stunned by this chapter. How could I have forgotten this so totally? The entire chapter came as a surprise! And I agree, what a wonderfully evocative description Dickens uses, to set the scene. It's so full of ominous foreboding, packed with the pathetic fallacy he uses to such effect. Thanks for your great reprise, Kim, and all the illustrations too.

Having forgotten the content of this chapter entirely, I had assumed that the lurker in the shadows, who dogged Pip's every step was Compeyson! I was also staggered to meet Trabb's boy again! Dickens does like his neatly tied ends, accounting for even minor characters, and yes, I smirked to see that even the adult Pip could not bring himself to be grateful. He has to get a dig in at him ... and thus we bid farewell to Trabb's boy, a likeable rogue I thought.

Peter, I thought your analysis of the duality of Pip and Orlick was simply superb. I like this a lot :) Thanks!

Jean wrote: "we bid farewell to Trabb's boy, a likeable rogue "

Yes! I saw him as a likable rogue, as well! Perfect description.

He really made pompous Pip look like a stuffed shirt at times!

Hi all, thanks for the excellent breakdown, analysis and description of each chapter. I'm a little late to the party as just reading great expectations now. I have been continually impressed by Dickens' tying up of loose ends, as mentioned by previous poster Bionic Jean. That said however, I have to admit that this was the first chapter in the book that caused me a sceptical raise of an eyebrow. I found it a bit too convenient that Orlick chose the day almost immediately before Herbert and Pip were going to smuggle Magwitch away, to make his attack. And was he really so deeply wronged as to doggedly pursue Pip so closely in London and over such an extended period of time as to learn all this information? Surely he would be missed in the village and / or have had other enemies to pursue given the ease at which he apparently takes offence? Sorry to pick holes but this is the one part of the book so far that I find slightly unbelievable. Any contradictory thoughts or opinions welcome!

Una wrote: "Hi all, thanks for the excellent breakdown, analysis and description of each chapter. I'm a little late to the party as just reading great expectations now. I have been continually impressed by Dic..."

Hi, Una - Dickens relies heavily (too heavily, many would argue) on convenient coincidences. I can't respond to specifics because my brain is Swiss cheese, and no longer holds on to details very well, but you've brought up a good point about Orlick's perceived victimization. He definitely thought the world owed him something, and was not one to buy into the concept of personal responsibility. I'm sure you're right, that he probably made enemies wherever he went. The boss/employee dynamic being what it is, I guess he had it out for the Gargerys and Pip more than all the others who may have slighted him along the way.

Una wrote: "Hi all, thanks for the excellent breakdown, analysis and description of each chapter. I'm a little late to the party as just reading great expectations now. I have been continually impressed by Dic..."

Hi Una

Yes. Dickens does enjoy creating coincidences. It is part of the Dickens experience. I too have rolled my eyes at some of his convenient coincidences but have come to enjoy them. Reading is certainly an individual experience.

We are just finishing our reading of Oliver Twist. I invite you to join us as we wrap that book up. Next up is Nicholas Nickleby. Please join us if you enjoy Dickens. I can promise more coincidences. :-))