Great Expectations: Story, Textual Analysis and Critical Discussion of Part 1 (Chapters 13 - 19)

1. Great Expectations: Story, Textual Analysis and Critical Discussion of Part 1 (Chapters 13 - 19) Dr. SarwetRasul

2. Previous Session • Part 1 • Chapters 8-12 • What did we do?

3. Today’s Session • Part 1 • Chapters 13- 19 • How we are going to explore?

4. Part I: Chapter 12 • Pip returns once again to Miss Havisham's. • He is afraid that he will be punished for fighting, but the incident goes unmentioned during his next visit to Miss Havisham’s. He also does not see the boy again. • Every time he goes there he performs the duty of pushing the wheelchair of Miss Havisham from her room to the large banquet hall. Thus over a long period of months he continues doing the same. • These visits continue for eight to ten months as he goes there every alternate day.

5. Part I: Chapter 12 • Pip is becoming increasingly hopeful that Miss Havisham intends to raise him from his low social standing and give him a gentleman’s fortune. • Lost in this false hope he can not notice that Miss Havisham encourages Estella to torture him, asking her to break his heart. • During this same time, Mr. Pumblechook frequently visits Mrs. Joe and discusses Pip would have better chances of making his future if he keeps on seeing Miss Havisham. • But the prospects seem to be completely destroyed as one night Miss Havisham asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her in order that Pip may start his apprenticeship as a blacksmith. As she offers to help with the papers that would officially make Pip Joe’s apprentice, Pip realizes that she never meant to make him a gentleman, and his expectations about great future are not fulfilled.

6. Themes in so far discussed in these chapters Upward social lift • Pip's asking Biddy to tutor him shows his sheer determination to rise above his coarseness and shame. Already he is turning into a snob who always thinks himself superior and considers his own interest only. When he tells Biddy about Estella he fails to notice the intense interest she has in him. She is below his aspirations so he doesn't notice her as a person. However, when it comes to gaining his own benefit, he is ready to use her as a tool to gain education. Themes of guilt, terror, and secrecy • Same themes of guilt, terror, and secrecy continue. • Pip fears that he may be arrested after fighting with the pale young gentleman, and this shows his terror as well as guilt. • As far as the theme of secrecy is concerned, Pip never told Joe about the convict and currently has told Joe nothing of Miss Havisham or his fight with the young man there. He has a number of secrets.

7. Art of characterization • Dickens as a satirist shows his mastery. • Satire on relations through parasitic relatives such as Miss Sarah Pocket, Camilla and Mr. Raymond, and Georgiana. • Satire carries the tinge of humour as well when Dickens often calls Raymond "Mr. Camilla," mocking him as a henpecked husband at the mercy of his wife. • Over concern of these relatives, their inner desire to have share in Miss Havisham’s wealth, her taunting style all is a bitter society on the selfishness of each character and on the society in turn. • They can be compared to vultures waiting for her to die so they can collect her money. • Dickens' descriptions are superb in adding to their distasteful personalities. He paints Sarah Pocket as "a little dry brown corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells, and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers." Sarah's character tag becomes the walnut-shell countenance; the phrase repeats throughout the book.

8. Theme of revenge: • Miss Havisham continues to operate for her agenda of revenge. • She uses Estella as a tool for her purpose. • She keeps on insisting Estella to break hearts

9. Autobiographical Element • Not only social commentaries are evident, but also Dickens’ personal experiences as a child are reflected.. Just as Dickens' mother wanted him to keep working to bring in money, Mrs. Joe is hoping to get some financial gain from Pip's stay with Miss Havisham. Dickens satirizes the greed of parents who benefit at their children's expense ,

10. Part I: Chapter 13 • Joe accompanies Pip to the Satis House the next day to complete the papers of Pip’s apprenticeship. With his rough speech and crude appearance, he seems horribly out of place in the Gothic mansion. • Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty five guineas for Pip's service to her and thus buys Pip's indenture as a blacksmith. • Returning to Mr. Pumblechook's house, where Mrs. Joe is also anxiously waiting, Joe produces the twenty five pounds much to everyone's -- except Pip's -- joy. Caught up in the excitement, Mr. Pumblechook insists that Pip be legally bound by law and drags Pip and the entourage down to the Town Hall to be bound. Mrs. Joe then brings everyone out for dinner. • At the meal, all seem to be enjoying themselves but Pip is very unhappy and angry. He is keenly disappointed by this turn in his life. • (TEXT) "...I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now."

11. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis Meals and Theme of relationships: • Throughout the novel, Dickens uses meals as a reflection of the relationships. • The meal celebrating Pip's apprenticeship is a reminder of the Christmas meal in Chapter 4. • Interestingly for Pip both these meals have ‘NO’ sense of enjoyment related to these meals. • We also need to think about the uneaten meal and cake in Miss Havisham's house that symbolizes the lack of love and human companionship that stands completely in contrast with what meals commonly signify.

12. Cont… Meals and Theme of relationships • We also need to look at the first "meal" of the story: the pork pie and "wittels" that Pip gives to the convict, we see something different. Though the setting of the meal is unglamorous, the cold, damp marshes, and the manners of the guest (the convict) are likened to a dog, there appears to be some genuine hospitality in Pip's words, "I am glad you enjoy it." And the convict answers sincerely, "Thankee, my boy, I do." The meal, in fact, establishes a link betwen the two. • We will find Dickens using food and meals in the upcoming chapters again to enable the reader to reflect on relationships and interactions on various levels of society.

13. Themes of Loss of Innocence and Kindness: • The consequence of Pip’s intensifying social ambition is that he loses some of his innocence and becomes detached from his natural, sympathetic kindness. • In the early chapters of the novel, Pip sympathized with the convict, despite the threat the man posed to his safety. • Now, there is a change. Pip is unable to sympathize even with Joe, the most caring figure in his life. • Emergence of Snobbery: • We need to see Pip ’s response to Estella vs. Biddy in this connection

14. Part I: Chapter 14 • Time passes as Pip begins working in Joe’s forge; the boy slowly becomes an adolescent. He hates working as Joe’s apprentice, but out of consideration for Joe’s goodness, he keeps his feelings to himself. • Pip as a narrator explains his misery to his readers. He is ashamed of his home, ashamed of his trade. He wants to be uncommon, he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a part of the environment that he had a small taste of at the Satis House. • He fears, beyond everything else, that Estella will see him in his current, dirty, blacksmith state. As he works, he thinks he sees Estella’s face mocking him in the forge, and he longs for Satis House.

15. Opening text of chapter 14 It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account.

16. More text of chapter 14 Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe’s ‘prentice, I should be distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of small coal, and that I had a weight upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe.

17. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis • We need to notice the contradiction and contrast in Pip's shame at having to do honest, hard work with his desire to be a gentleman. • Dicken's criticism is on two levels: one, against the society which enforces these values and two, against the individuals, like Pip, who adopt society's values despite their better judgment.

18. Part I: Chapter 15 • Biddy continues to teach Pip all she knows. • Pip, in turn, continues to teach Joe everything he has learned. • Orlick, a man that Joe employs around the forge, begins one day to insult Mrs. Joe within her hearing. She and Orlick indulge into a quarrel. • As Mrs. Joe asks Joe to defend her honor, Joe quickly defeats Orlick in the fight. • Mrs. Joe is so excited that she faints. • However, Joe and Orlick continue to work together as if it is all behind them. • It has been almost a year now that Pip is working at the forge. Now he revisits Miss Havisham at the Satis House. She sees him for a few moments, but only to laugh at him when he looks around for Estella. • It is a great disappointment for Pip to know that Estella has been sent abroad to be educated as a lady.

19. Cont... Part I: Chapter 15 • Dejected, he allows Wopsle to take him to Pumblechook’s for the evening, where they pass the time reading from a play. • On the way home, Pip sees Orlick in the shadows and hears guns fire from the prison ships. When he arrives home he finds that nearly the whole of the village has gathered around his house. He learns that Mrs. Joe has been attacked, hit over the head, and knocked senseless by some unknown assailant.

20. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis • Theme of violence: • Even while Pip dreams of an upper-class life, violence and crime continue to be events in his life. In this chapter, Pip is witness to a fight between Orlick and Joe; this reminds us of Pip’s fight with a man in the previous chapters that pleased Estella. • Violence comes quickly and rather unexpectedly throughout the novel and, as in this case, does little to solve anything.

21. Theme of Innocence and Guilt Resurface: • Themes of guilt and innocence run powerfully through this section, as Pip’s adolescent mind wavers between right and wrong, between his desire to be good and his stark sense of evil. The play he reads at Pumblechook’s house tells the story of a man whose lover convinces him to kill his uncle for money. Pip will soon abandon Joe for money and the promise of Estella.

22. Part I: Chapter 16 • Pip immediately suspects Orlick, though, strangely, his sister was hit with the shackles that the convict filed off in the first chapter! Because of this connection, Pip also suspects the one-eyed man that Joe and he had met in the pub, and who had demonstrated his own knowledge of Pip's past by stirring his drink with the file used to free those same shackles. • His sister has suffered some serious brain damage, having lost much of voice, her hearing, and her memory. She communicates by writing letters and symbols on a slate. Furthermore, her "temper was greatly improved, and she was patient." • To help with the housework and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy is employed and moves into the house and becomes "a blessing to the household." • Mrs. Joe, who is now unable to talk, begins to draw the letter “T” on her slate over and over, which Pip guesses represents a hammer. From this, Biddy deduces that she is referring to Orlick. Orlick is called in to see Mrs. Joe, and Pip expects her to denounce him as her attacker. Instead, she seems eager to please Orlick and often calls for him in subsequent days by drawing a “T” on her slate.

23. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis • The seemingly distant episode of Pip helping the convict on the marshes continues to haunt him, even as he tries to distance himself by becoming educated and he dreams of being Estella's gentleman. The shackles in this chapter remind Pip of the episode and bring back his shame and guilt to the point where Pip feels like he is partly responsible for his sister's injury. • Dickens subtly changes how we view Mrs. Joe by referring to her now as "my sister." Before the accident, the readers almost forget the blood relationship between Pip and Mrs. Joe, but with the changing of Mrs. Joe's attitude and temper, her position reverts to Pip's sister.

24. Part I: Chapter 17 • Time passes. • Pip notices that Biddy is turning into a woman, not very pretty, but very bright and wise. • Pip also tells Biddy his secret regarding his love for Estella. • He also expresses his desire to be a gentlemen. • Biddy wisely suggests that becoming a gentleman to "gain over" a woman who thinks him course and common does not sound very logical. • When Biddy advises him to stay away from Estella, Pip is angry with her. • On the other hand he dislikes when Orlick pays attention to Biddy.

25. Part I: Chapter 18 • It is the fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship . • He is sitting with Joe and Mr. Wopsle at the pub. • As Pip sits there in a crowd listening to Wopsle read the story of a murder trial from a newspaper. A stranger begins questioning Wopsle about the legal details of the case. Pip recognizes him as the large, dark man he met on the stairs at Miss Havisham’s place in Chapter 11. • The stranger introduces himself as the lawyer Jaggers, and he goes home with Pip and Joe. • There Jaggers explains that Pip now has "great expectations." He has been given a large amount of money, to be administered by Jaggers, by an anonymous sponsor whom Pip is never to try to discover. • Jaggers explains that Pip is to be "brought up a gentleman" , and Pip feels his dreams are going to come true. • Pip is also told that he will be tutored by Matherw Pocket. Again this is the man who was referred to at Miss Havisham’s place. • P is also given some money to get new clothes and to get ready to go to London.

26. Cont… Part I: Chapter 18 • Joe is sad on the idea that he would lose Pip. • Biddy is also sad. • On the other hand we see that Pip adopts a snobbish attitude and thinks himself too good for his surroundings. • Still, when Pip sees Joe and Biddy quietly talking together that night, he feels sorry to be leaving them.

27. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis Theme of Misunderstandings: • The implication to Pip, and to the readers, is that Miss Havisham is the sponsor who is going to make all of Pip's dreams come true. However, times will prove otherwise.

28. Part I: Chapter 19 • The word has spread through town that Pip has come into fortune and people are treating him distinctively different. • Pip’s snobbery is back in the morning. He goes into town to buy clothes for his London trip and stores them at Pumblechook's house because he thinks it would be common of him to wear them in his own neighborhood. • Even Pumblechook is treating him as if he is very special. • Relations between he and Biddy and Joe do not improve. He tries to comfort Joe, but his attempt is obviously forced, and Biddy criticizes him for it. When he asks Biddy if she would try and educate Joe so that he could bring him up to another social level once the full extent of Pip's sponsor's fortune is given to him. Biddy says that Joe has no need, and does not want, to be brought up to another social level. • Pip visits Miss Havisham. She hints subtly that she is his unknown sponsor, and does it in such a way that Sarah Pocket, standing near, is given to believe it. • Finally Pip leaves for London. Even while he is in the carriage, however, he considers turning around and spending another day saying good-bye to Joe and Biddy.

29. Text from Chapter19 Symbol of Mist • But the village was very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears. • …………………………………………. • So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear of the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get down when we changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind, and still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to get down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was occupied with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe in some man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would beat high. - As if he could possibly be there! • We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me. • THIS IS THE END OF THE FIRST STAGE OF PIP’S EXPECTATIONS.

30. Points to Ponder: A Critical Analysis • Pip’s vanity • His snobbery • His reaction to Joe and Biddy • His enthusiasm to go to London • His goodbye to marshes as a goodbye to this phase of life

31. Summary of Today’s Session • We covered Part 1(chapters 13 to 19) of the novel, thus ended part one. • Explored the text of these chapters • Explored themes • Discussed the development of characters • Critically analyzed the selected parts of text • Discussed several important points related to the development of plot

32. References of works consulted • CHARLES DICKEN’S GREAT EXPECTATIONS. (2007) Edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Viva Books Private Limited: New Delhi • DICKENS: A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS (1967). Edited by Martin Price. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey • http://www.cliffsnotes.com • www.gradesaver.com • www.enotes.com • www.bartleby.com • www.gutenberg.org • http://www.helium.com • http://www.studymode.com • http://thebestnotes.com

33. Thank you very much!