H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e1 5 4the violence and oppressiveness of the public world also infiltrate
the private one. Joe’s job as a blacksmith involves a good deal of
hammering, and so does Mrs Joe’s treatment of Pip. In fact, Joe tells
the boy how his own father, a blacksmith averse to work, ‘hammered
at me with a wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which
he didn’t hammer at his anwil’. Pip uses the word ‘unjust’ of
Mrs Joe’s belabouring of him, which links the violence of the
domestic world to the public domain of law, crime and punish-
ment. The forge is associated with iron, and it is with a piece of iron
that Orlick strikes Mrs Joe down.
Yet this intimacy between work and home, public and private
domains, is also to be prized. For better as well as for worse, there
is a minimum of distance between the two realms in the Gargery
household. Joe’s qualities as a craftsman are related to his virtues as
a friend and surrogate father. The later Dickens admires people
who have practical skills rather than those who live off stocks and
shares. Manual work is real, whereas paper wealth is parasitic on
other people’s labour. Magwitch’s fortune was earned by the sweat
of his brow, which is more than can be said of Miss Havisham’s.
So there is something authentic about the forge, just as there is
something brittle and unreal about the world of wealth and privi-
lege. In moving from his rural home to fashionable London, Pip is
travelling from reality to illusion. He will finally have to reverse this
journey if he is to be redeemed.
Miss Havisham is a substitute mother to the adopted Estella,
while Magwitch is a substitute father to Pip. ‘I’m your second
father,’ he tells Pip. ‘You’re my son – more to me than any son.’
Since Magwitch is also Estella’s literal father, we have another mild
hint of incest here. Metaphorically speaking, Pip and Estella are
brother and sister. In fact, it was because he believed his daughter