•
Pip has his breakfast with the convict, who
tells him his name is Magwitch
– He is now going by the name Provis while in
England
• Although Pip is disgusted with him, he
wants to protect him
– Pip buys him some clothes that will make him
look like a “prosperous farmer”
•
Pip goes to Jaggers to verify that Magwitch
is his benefactor
– He assures Pip that Miss Havisham has nothing to
do with his great expectations
• Magwitch – believes that the amount of money
you have, and how pretentiously you spend it, is
what gives a man value. That is why he has
spent his life working for money to make a poor
blacksmith’s boy a “gentleman.”
• Pip – believes that one’s value is decided by the
class one is born, or adopted into. He thinks
Magwitch as the lowest of the low, which
means he is also the lowest of the low for
associating with him
Herbert meets Magwitch
• Pip brings Magwitch to a nearby inn,
then returns to discuss with Herbert what
should be done
• Pip feels he cannot take any more of
Magwitch’s money – Pip is proud and it is
the money of a criminal
•
– Also Pip doesn’t want Magwitch’s execution
on his hands if he is discovered in England
– Pip wants to protect him because he has
risked his life to see Pip
• They decide they will try to convince
Magwitch to leave England with Pip
• Magwitch returns for breakfast the next
morning and Pip asks him about the other
convict that Pip had seen him fighting with in
the marshes
• Happiness is in the eye of the beholder – Pip
is always unhappy
– Although many in the novel are living a much
worse life than he—Joe, Biddy, Magwitch,
Wemmick, Jaggers, Herbert, the other Pockets –
they do not seem to demonstrate the same
unhappiness with their lot in life.
– Pip has yet to reach within himself to find
happiness that neither society, concepts of
home, or Estella can offer him

Magwitch tells Herbert and Pip the story
of his life
› As a child he was alone and got into trouble
– he stole out of hunger and cold
› While he was young, others referred to him
as being hard as a criminal and predicted
that he would spend his life in and out of jail
– his life ended up as predicted
• While briefly out of jail,
Magwitch ran into a well-to-do
man named Compeyson
 Compeyson had his hand in everything
illegal – swindling, forgery, and other
crimes
 When Magwitch met him, Compeyson
was working with a half-crazed man
named Arthur
 Arthur saw visions of a woman dressed all in white,
with a broken heart, who came to haunt him
 On one of these haunts, Arthur died
 Compeyson
recruits Magwitch to
do his dirty work and soon gets
Magwitch into trouble with the
law
 Both end up standing before a judge
 Compeyson – being a gentleman, he is given a
lesser sentence than Magwitch
 Magwitch – is seen as a career criminal; this
causes Magwitch to develop an unbelievable
hatred for Compeyson
 He hates Compeyson with a self-sacrificing vengeance –
Compeyson was the mastermind behind their crimes, yet
received less of a sentence
• Herbert passes a note to Pip
› “Young Havisham’s name was Arthur.
Compeyson is the man who professed to be
Miss Havisham’s lover.”
› Previously non-related story lines now come
together – Magwitch worked with the man
who had jilted Miss Havisham on her
wedding day
› Arthur turns out to be Miss Havisham’s half
brother who worked against her…and she
haunted him until the end
Pip finds out that Estella is at Satis House
and feels he needs to go back to visit
her and Miss Havisham
 Pip returns to his home town and meets
Drummle at the town inn

› He is obviously courting Estella
› They exchange rude words and then depart
on their own ways
• Pip finds Estella and Miss Havisham in the
banquet room at Satis House
– Pip tells Miss Havisham that he is unhappy with the
way she led him on
• Yet he has forgiven them both because he realizes it
was his own fault for devising unreal expectations
–
–
Pip tells Miss Havisham that Herbert and
Matthew Pocket are different from her other
relatives – they are kind and upright
Pip breaks down and confesses his love for
Estella
• Estella tells him that she is incapable of love and that
she had warned him of this before – she also confesses
she will be married to Drummle
• Miss Havisham and Estella have
different reactions to his break
down
– Miss Havisham – appears to be touched and
Pip’s broken heart strikes a cord within her own
heart
– Estella – appears amazed at the show of
emotion and doesn’t seem to understand it –
she is not angry, she is curious, as she really
doesn’t know what it means to love as Pip is now
loving her
– The difference may imply that certain characters
are more guilty of their sins than others because
of the level of consciousness in their actions
• Miss Havisham – deliberately set out to break Pip’s heart
through Estella
• Estella – is unconscious of what she did…she only acted
as she was brought up to act

Pip walks back to London
› At the gate to his house, he is given a note
from Wemmick
 “Don’t Go Home.”
•
Pip gets a room at a nearby inn and visits
Wemmick’s castle in the morning
– Wemmick tells Pip things he has learned from
prisoners at Newgate
• Pip is being watched and may be in danger
• Compeyson has made his presence known in
London
– Wemmick has already warned Herbert
• Due to the warning, Herbert has brought Magwitch
to his fiancé Clara’s house – this is in a
neighborhood that Pip doesn’t frequent
• The house is right next to a dock on the Thames,
making an escape by river more
easily accomplished
Pip spends the day with Wemmick’s
relative the “Aged,” and leaves as it
starts to get dark
 Strangely, as the threat on Magwitch’s
life grows, Pips affection and worry for
him also grows

› In this chapter, Pip is reminded who his true
friends are
 Wemmick – is willing to be unprofessional and
ask questions around the criminal areas of
town
 Herbert – is risking his own life by helping Pip
harbor a wanted man
•
Pip goes to Clara’s house to find
Magwitch and Herbert
– Herbert introduces Pip to Clara
• She has no relatives except for her father – a
drunk, bed-ridden old sailor who lives on the
second floor who constantly claims Clara’s
attention…Herbert has never met him
– Pip tells Magwitch that he is being watched
and this is the best place for him
in order to stay safe
• Warns Magwitch that they must only have
contact through Herbert

Pip is sad to leave Magwitch – the rough
old convict appears to have softened a
bit
› Pip’s feelings have changed from fear and
disgust of the convict, to sympathy and
genuine companionship
•
Pip goes to dinner alone one night, and
then to the theater where he sees Mr.
Wopsle in one of his productions
– Mr. Wopsle stares strangely at Pip throughout the
play and even appears to be out of character
– After the show, Mr. Wopsle asks Pip who he
came with
• Pip says he came alone
• Mr. Wopsle tells Pip there was a man sitting behind
him for much of the production and that he
recognized him as the convict that he, Pip, and
Joe had hunted with the soldiers when Pip was a
child
• The man was Compeyson
•
Pip has dinner with Jaggers and
Wemmick at Jaggers’ home and
learns that Drummle has married Estella
– Jaggers believes that Drummle will either beat
her or become a brow-beaten husband himself
– The whole conversation pains Pip, who has been
trying to avoid this subject even with Herbert
– Pip finally realizes what had been so familiar
about a certain look he had seen in Estella
• It was the same look that he had seen on the face
of Jaggers’ servant woman
• Pip knows instinctively that this woman must be
Estella’s mother
•
On their way home, Wemmick tells Pip the
story of Jaggers’ woman servant
– It was Jaggers’ first big break-through case…the
case that made him
• He was defending this woman in a case where she
was accused of killing another woman by
strangulation
– This other woman was allegedly having an affair with the
Jaggers’ servant’s husband
• Jaggers dressed her to look weaker than she was,
made no comment about her strong hands and
proved the scratches on her hands were from
bramble bushes, not a struggle
• It was also alleged that the servant killed her child
to get even with her husband
– Jaggers was able to sway the jury away from that
opinion
– She has worked for Jaggers ever since

Nothing is as it once seemed to Pip
anymore
› Convicts (Magwitch) are kind
› Ladies (Estella) are the daughters of criminals
› Gentlemen (Drummle, Jaggers) are
scoundrels
› Blacksmiths (Joe) are loyal
› Pip is starting to let go of the societal
definitions for these people and is seeing
them for who they really are – individuals
beyond labeling
•
Miss Havisham asks that Pip come visit her
– He finds her sitting by the fire and she’s looking
very lonely
– She seems almost afraid of Pip
– He tells her how he was giving some of his
money to help Herbert with his future, but now
must stop since he is no longer taking money
from his benefactor
– Miss Havisham wants to help and gives Pip
nine hundred pounds to continue to
help Herbert

She then asks Pip for forgiveness
› Pip says he has already forgiven her
› Pip believes she has done more a disservice
to herself and to Estella in her actions
 She took away the light (daylight and a
spiritual sense of joy) from both of their lives
 She destroyed a young girl’s capacity to love
and now Miss Havisham is growing old without
someone to love her
› He says he needs too much forgiving himself
to be able not to forgive others
 Pip is reminded of his own need to reconcile
and ask for forgiveness from Joe and Biddy

Pip asks Miss Havisham about
the history of Estella
› Estella was brought to Miss Havisham as a
mere infant by Jaggers during the night

Pip goes out for a walk around the
garden and comes back to find Miss
Havisham on fire
› Pip extinguishes the fire that was burning Miss
Havisham, but ends up burning himself in the
process
› The doctors come to help and announce
that she will live