I n t e r p r e t a t i o n1 6 3you might be able to grope tentatively forward. If you repress the
past, it will only return with a vengeance to trip you up, as
Magwitch bursts without warning into Pip’s lodgings in London.
The novel begins with a kind of ending (the graves of Pip’s
parents in the churchyard) and ends with a new beginning, as a
much chastened Pip and Estella step forth to start their lives afresh.
Satis House, by contrast, is a place in which narrative has been
suspended. Time there has come to a dead end, as Miss Havisham
walks round and round her mouldering room without getting
anywhere. As far as narrative goes, we may also note that though
this is a tale delivered in the first person, it provides us with a
morally devastating portrait of its narrator. It is a tribute to Pip’s
strength of character that he can see, and allow the reader to see,
what an unlovable little upstart he has become. No doubt it is the
same strength of character which eventually helps to pull him
through.
There are some significant patterns of imagery in the story,
which work to reinforce its themes. One is the image of iron, which
crops up in a number of different forms: Magwitch’s leg- iron,
which Orlick will later to use to batter Mrs Joe; the file which
Pip steals from Joe, which also reappears later in the story; the
prison ship, which with its massive mooring chains seems to be
‘ironed like the prisoners’; Mrs Joe’s wedding ring, which scrapes
the young Pip’s face when she punishes him; and so on. Magwitch
metaphorically forges chains for Pip, even if they are fashioned
of gold and silver. Pip is legally ‘bound’ as an apprentice, fettered
to a career as a blacksmith for which he feels nothing but contempt.
Iron in the novel thus comes to symbolise violence and
incarceration, but there is also a solidity and simplicity about it
which contrasts with the vacuous world of Satis House and London