Great Expectations Characterization Mr. Jaggers vs. Mr. John Wemmick

1. Great ExpectationsCharacterizationMr. Jaggersvs.Mr. John Wemmick

2. Similarities to each other • Work in the law office with each other • Harsh approach to clients, often appearing impatient • Father-figures to Pip • Invite Pip to dine with them • Both of their “comfort zones” are described in detail by Dickens • Wemmick’s Castle and Jaggers’ office • Symbolizing the connection between these two characters

3. Differences to each other • Throughout the book, there is no mention of any family of Mr. Jaggers, while we see Mr. Wemmick’s family (the Aged, Miss Skiffins) multiple times. • Mr. Wemmick eventually marries Miss Skiffins (away from the office at Walworth and asks Pip to be his best man, but to not tell Mr. Jaggers about the wedding) • Mr. Jaggers’s personality is consistent throughout the story while Mr. Wemmick’s changes greatly depending on his location.

4. Personality • Working in the same law office, Mr. Jaggers and Mr. Wemmick are foils for each other, Jaggers being a static character, and Wemmick being a developing character. • Wemmick has a duel personality split between his work life (the London office), and his home life (at Walworth). • Mr. Jaggers uses his “office personality” as his only personality. • (pg. 208) • “This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way.”

5. First Impressions • Jaggers (pg 145) • `My name,' he said, `is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you see me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I do. No less, no more.' • The first impression we have of him is consistent with his character throughout the book therefore making him a static character.

6. First Impressions • Wemmick (pg 179) • CASTING my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for, he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes -- small, keen, and black -- and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years. • While this first impression is correct, it only qualifies Wemmick in his office life.

7. Dinner • Pip dines with both Mr. Jaggers and Mr. Wemmick at separate times and at one time dines with both together. • Pip’s dinner with Mr. Jaggers does not introduce any knew mannerisms of Mr. Jaggers but does introduce Molly, who we later learn was saved by Mr. Jaggers along with her daughter. • Molly’s story adds another dimension to Mr. Jaggers personality (his compassion to a woman and her child), but is still compatible with our previous impressions of him. • Pip’s dinner with Mr. Wemmick introduces him to Wemmick’s alter ego, the cheery family man and to the Aged Parent and Miss Skiffins. • The dinner with both is odd because Wemmick recently had a meeting with Pip at Walworth where he told Pip to wait for instruction from him regarding Magwitch but Wemmick doesn’t even interact with Pip in this meeting. • “Although I should not have thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth senti- ments, yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were twin Wemmicks and this was the wrong one.” (pg 412) • After the meal, Wemmick explains himself, also explaining to the reader how his personality works. • `Well!' said Wemmick, `that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine with him -- and I dine more comfortably unscrewed.' I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so. `Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself,' he answered. `I know that what is said between you and me, goes no further.' (pg 415)

8. Mannerisms • Wemmick • Wemmick is obsessed with “Portable Property,” valuable items that are movable and stresses the importance of it to Pip. • In Newgate Prison, Wemmick goes around to former clients who soon will be executed and asks for any of their valuable possessions • Jaggers • Does not meet with the families of his clients except to settle monetary issues, showing almost everything he does is for business, as that is what his life revolves around.

9. Compared and Contrast to Pip • Wemmick • Compare • Both he and Pip are developing characters and are the two prime examples of changing personalities depending on location and surroundings. • Contrast • His life consists of traveling between London and his home (Walworth), while Pip’s buildungsroman ultimately ends away from London in his original home

10. Compared and Contrast to Pip • Mr. Jaggers • Compare • Besides their obvious association with Abel Magwitch, both Mr. Jaggers and Pip (for a while) treat the lower classes with disdain. (Mr. Jaggers sets this example for Pip when he throws these people out of his office and Pip exemplifies this in his dealings with Joe) • Contrast • While Pip has a multifaceted personality (as a result of being influenced by a wide variety of people that he encounters), Mr. Jaggers personality is unwavering throughout the story.

11. Benji's Idea • Both Wemmick and Jaggers know that they are dealing with the scum of the earth and each deal with that in their own way, depending on their personality • Wemmickseperates his office life from his home life because he is able to unlike… • Jaggers who merely washes his hands multiple times because he cannot psyschalogically separate his life in two [addition by me (or cannot afford to separate his life because it would hurt his business by making him appear weak)

12. When lives collide • When Wemmick’s home and office lives collide • `Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle heart. I have seen your pleas- ant home, and your old father, and all the innocent cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to MrJaggers, and to represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more open with me!‘ I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than MrJaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a mis- giving crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his employment; but, it melted as I saw MrJaggers relax into something like a smile, and Wemmick become bolder. `What's all this?' said MrJaggers. `You with an old father, and you with pleasant and playful ways ?‘ `Well!' returned Wemmick. `If I don't bring 'em here, what does it matter?‘ `Pip,' said MrJaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling openly, `this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.‘ `Not a bit of it,' returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. `I think you're another.‘ Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still distrustful that the other was taking him in. `You with a pleasant home?' said MrJaggers. `Since it don't interfere with business,' returned Wemmick, `let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own, one of these days, when you're tired of all this work.‘ MrJaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and actually drew a sigh.

13. Summary • Jaggers is direct, but he is not a bad man. He saves Molly and Estella because he knows what would happen if they went to prison (evidenced by his speech on 339-340), but his personality does not permit him to become emotionally attached to them (or anyone else) because that would interfere and can be a possible detriment to his job and can be viewed as weakness. He seeks his security in control and power, and decides to throw off emotions and people He pays a cost in his life, but accepts it. • Wemmick is the transition character between Joe and Jaggers. He acts like Joe at home and like Mr. Jaggers at the office. This is why he and Pip become so close and why he invites Pip to his wedding as his best man. When he interacts with Pip away from Walworth, he risks mixing his two personalities in London, something he does not want to do. That is why he reasserts his office personality by being harsh to clients in the office in front of Pip and why he tells Pip at his wedding that Jaggers should not know of this. Wemmick is obsessed with “portable property" because he, unlike Mr. Jaggers, he’s not rich and has a family to support. But separate from his office life he is creative and emotional (even gets married). His true personality is the one we see at Walworth, but he simply cannot act that way because Mr. Jaggers would not tolerate someone so opposite from his own personality.