I n t e r p r e t a t i o n1 5 1savagely assaulted at the forge by the villainous Orlick, a labourer
in Joe’s employ, lingers on her sickbed for a while unable to speak,
and finally dies. Joe then marries Biddy, a pleasant young school-
mistress less given to clipping him around the ear.
A London lawyer, Jaggers, arrives to inform Pip that an anony-
mous donor has bestowed a fortune upon him, and that he is to go
to the capital to live as a gentleman. Pip, who assumes that his
benefactor is Miss Havisham, and that she is grooming him to be a
suitable partner for Estella, moves to the metropolis, and under the
guardianship of the grim- faced Jaggers launches on a somewhat
ungratifying life of leisure. He becomes a prig and a snob, disdainful
of his previous life and odiously condescending to the injured but
uncomplaining Joe. Even as a working- class child, he anticipates
his future as a gentleman by speaking Standard English rather than
the local accent. (So does Oliver Twist, who was brought up in a
workhouse yet speaks like a chartered accountant. There was a
general feeling in Victorian circles that heroes and heroines should
not be allowed to drop their aitches or slur their vowels. The fact
that the Artful Dodger speaks with a Cockney accent is not unre-
lated to the fact that he steals handkerchiefs.)
Magwitch then reappears abruptly on the scene, having escaped
from his life in Australia, to inform Pip that it is he who is his secret
benefactor. He has prospered while abroad, and made a gentleman
out of the boy in gratitude for the help he gave him on the marshes.
Pip receives this news with horror, and at first feels little but disgust
for his new- found patron. Magwitch, who left Australia illegally, is
being pursued by the authorities, and Pip arranges for him to be
secretly shipped out of the country. Once again, however, the
convict is arrested. He is sentenced to death, but dies before he can
be hanged. Pip’s feelings towards the felon have now softened, and