Great Expectations (Grades 9–1) York Notes

The relationship between Pip and Magwitch is a main feature of the entire novel. Through this relationship Dickens is able to explore many themes and ideas, such as the relationship between adults, parents and children, rich and poor, ambition and pride and punishment and criminality. In this extract Pip has learnt that Magwitch has been his mysterious benefactor and that Jaggers and Wemmick have been keeping this secret from him. This is a plot revelation that is considered typical of Dickens which would have kept his readers interested and on the lookout for more surprises throughout the book.

This news has a devastating impact on Pip and Dickens describes the physical effects of the shock, ‘I grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn.’ The verb ‘grasped’ shows Pip’s panic and terror, and in the same paragraph Dickens continues to describe the physical closeness of Magwitch and Pip, when Magwitch ‘caught’ Pip and brought his face ‘near ... to mine’. Pip describes his ‘abhorrence’ of Magwitch which means he thinks he is really horrible. Pip also describes Magwitch as a ‘terrible beast’. This is very similar to the way that the young Pip reacts to Magwitch in the opening chapter of the novel, except this time Pip now knows that Magwitch has ‘created’ his status as a gentleman. Interestingly, Magwitch describes himself as a ‘hunted dunghill dog’ when he was a criminal out on the marshes, but the difference is that Magwitch has reformed and changed and has done everything he can to make money and repay Pip for his kindness. Pip, however, is unable to see Magwitch as a kind person, and can only feel horror.

When Magwitch says ‘I’m your second father. You’re my son – more to me nor any son’, there is a good deal of truth in this statement, however strange it might sound. Magwitch goes on to describe his life in Australia, with his thoughts of Pip as desperate and full of love as any father’s. It is, in fact, Magwitch’s fatherly love for Pip that motivates him to make so much money – as Magwitch says later in the chapter ‘In every single thing I went for, I went for you.’ Pip’s biological father died before he knew him and Joe Gargery is actually his brother-in-law, and so you can’t really argue that he is a father to Pip. You could argue that Wemmick is also in part a father figure for Pip, but Magwitch’s claim as a ‘second father’ is in many ways understandable.

Dickens, however, juxtaposes Magwitch’s euphoria with Pip’s ‘nearly fainting’ which has the effect on the reader of being able to see the two characters’ response to the same facts. Pip says he is just grateful that Magwitch does not seem to notice how shocked and upset he is. This chapter ironically marks the beginning of Pip’s development into a much more honest and compassionate man, because it is by accepting Magwitch’s fatherly love he is able to come to terms with his own humble background. By the time Magwitch dies, Pip is full of remorse for his treatment of Magwitch. Magwitch says ‘You’ve never deserted me,’ to which Pip thinks in silence ‘I could not forget that I had once meant to desert him.’ The chapter describing the death of Magwitch, with Pip in attendance, is like the death of Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham and Magwitch both have a mysterious and, at times, frightening influence on Pip’s life. At her death, Miss Havisham is also able to make her peace with Pip, just like Magwitch and Pip forgives her for her cruelty.