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. This extract could be considered as typically ‘Dickensian’ in that it contains not only a scene of gothic dread, but also elaborate linguistic features, dramatic plot revelation and, at its heart, great sentiment and high emotion.

Magwitch’s disclosure of his identity has a devastating impact on Pip; Dickens portrays the physical effects of shock on Pip who ‘grasped’ at the chair, when the room began to ‘surge and turn’. Verbs such as ‘grasped’ and ‘suffocating’ characterise Pip’s panic and terror; the surging of the room recalls the way that Magwitch makes the world ‘go head over heels’ in the opening chapter of the novel when he picks up the young Pip in the cemetery. In both chapters Magwitch turns Pip’s life upside down both physically and metaphorically. Dickens continues with the parallels between both scenes in describing how Magwitch ‘caught’ Pip and brought his face ‘near to mine’, and there is a shocking sense of Magwitch acting as a humble father as he bends on his knee in front of the helpless Pip and looks closely into his face.

Dickens employs powerful abstract nouns such as ‘abhorrence’, ‘dread’ and ‘repugnance’ in a tripartite rhetorical sequence in order to convey Pip’s emotions. Pip’s description of Magwitch as a ‘terrible beast’ again recalls the way the young Pip reacts to Magwitch in the opening chapter of the novel where Magwitch is portrayed as eating ‘like a dog’ and a ‘madman’. Magwitch, in fact, described himself as a ‘hunted dunghill dog’ while a criminal out on the marshes, but the difference in this chapter is that the reformed Magwitch has dedicated his life to repaying Pip.

A further question is raised when Magwitch says ‘I’m your second father. You’re my son – more to me nor any son’. The notion is actually very problematic: it raises the question of who Pip’s ‘first’ father is. In reality, that ‘first father’ died long before he could have any influence on Pip’s life. Joe Gargery is arguably a paternal influence, but Joe’s relationship with Pip is blighted by Mrs Joe’s humiliating and abusive behaviour, which emasculates Joe to the point where he is almost another child in the forge with Pip. Jaggers, Wemmick and Pumblechook all offer different kinds of paternal guidance but none of these fulfil the role of ‘father’ in the way that Magwitch, ironically, is able to do. It is, in fact, Magwitch’s paternal love for Pip that motivates him to make so much money – as Magwitch says, ‘In every single thing I went for, I went for you’ (Ch. 39, p. 315).

Dickens juxtaposes Magwitch’s euphoria, his ‘heat and triumph’, with Pip’s physical and emotional shock, which results in Pip ‘nearly fainting’. The contrast with reality is also emphasised by Magwitch’s ideas of being a gentleman. To him it is a matter of wealth and acquisition – he offers money for ‘wagers’ with ‘lords’ and is exhilarated by the sight of Pip’s ‘linen’, and his books ‘mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds’. The reader, of course, will be aware that these objects are ironically the cause of Pip’s debt and are of no comfort to him at all. Moreover, Magwitch’s physicality – he takes Pip’s watch out of his pocket, and turns the ring on his finger – causes Pip to ‘recoil’ as if Magwitch were a ‘snake’ and Dickens’s continuing use of animal symbolism conveys Pip’s horror. When Magwitch kisses Pip’s hands, Pip remarks that his blood ‘ran cold’ with Dickens here employing the gothic imagery of fear.

However, this chapter ironically marks the beginning of Pip’s development into a much more honest and compassionate man, because it is only by accepting Magwitch’s fatherly love that he is able to come to terms with his own humble background. Furthermore, as part of the Bildungsroman structure, this scene portrays a conflict that the main protagonist has to overcome in order to progress and mature.