H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e1 6 2has seen through the fairy tale. It recognises that the bountiful fairy,
Miss Havisham, is actually a wicked witch, that dreams are tainted,
treasure corrupted and ambitions woven out of thin air. Abel
Magwitch is an able magic witch who can transform a poor boy
into a prince, but only at an appallingly steep price. The romance
has turned sour. As the name ‘Havisham’ suggests, to have is a
sham. The desire to possess is empty.
Even so, the narrative is not averse to the odd piece of manipula-
tion. Pip does not end up back in the forge. He is allowed to live as
a gentleman, though now as an industrious one. He ends up, in
short, pretty much as the middle- class man he yearned to be,
though now with the right values rather than the wrong ones. As
far as manipulation goes, the horrific death of Miss Havisham is
among other things the novel’s revenge on her for her heartless
designs on its hero. Pip is reconciled with Magwitch; but Magwitch
dies soon after, which conveniently ensures that Pip will not be
stuck with him for the rest of his days. It is one thing to clasp
this coarse- mannered old codger to one’s bosom, and another
thing to have to put him up in the spare room for the next twenty
years.
The Bildungsroman is above all a tale of progress, but Pip’s
history is one of regression. He must return to where he started in
order, in the words of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, to know the place
for the first time. It has been pointed out that his name is a palin-
drome, meaning a word which reads the same backward as well as
forward; and Pip can make real progress only by journeying back
to his point of origin. In order to be truly independent, you must
acknowledge the unsavoury sources from which your existence
stems. Only by accepting that you have a history not of your own
making can you be free. By turning back to stare the past in the face,