GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens~ July Bookclub Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

JULY and AUGUST

GREAT EXPECTATIONS  by Charles Dickens

           
         Title page ~1861
First edition: Price today:$125,000                                   150th anniversary edition: 2012

Great Expectations was first published in 1860 in serial form, two chapters every  week for a mere two-penny.  The first hard cover edition was published shortly after that in 1861. Amazingly, his story of Pip, often referred to as the archetypal Dickens hero,  has never gone out of print.

"The tale was wildly popular in its day, riddled with  many of the themes that fascinated Charles Dickens throughout his literary career.  He was drawn especially to social justice and the inequalities inherent to Victorian society. While England was growing rich and powerful in the era of colonialism and the Industrial Revolution, Dickens saw the injustice that ran rampant among the working and lower classes." (Introduction by George Bernard Shaw)

Discussion Schedule VOLUME 1 July 1-7 ~  Chapters I - VII July 8-14 ~ Chapters VIII - XIII July 15-21 ~ Chapters XIV - XIX

Chapter XIV

1.  Why is Pip so discontented with his home and occupation?
 
2.  Does Joe realize how Pip feels?

Chapter XV

1.  Why does Pip really want to visit Miss Havisham?

2.  What is a journeyman?
 

Chapter XVI

1.  Pip felt guilty while reading George Bramwell, and now feels guilty about his sister.  Why?

2.  Who do you think attacked Mrs. Joe?  What was their motive?

3.  Who are the Bow Street Runners?

Chapter XVII

1.  Biddy and Pip are now growing up.  What are Pip's feelings toward Biddy?  Hers toward him?

2.  Does Pip understand his own feelings?  Why is he in such a turmoil?

3.  Dickens describes Pip's ambitions very vividly.  Does this relate to Dickens' own life?

Chapter XVIII

1.  If you don't already know, who do you think has given Pip so much money.  Why did they do this?  (If you do know, please keep the secret.)

2.  What does the term "Great Expectations" actually mean?

Chapter XIX

1.  How has the attitude of the townspeople changed towards Pip?

2.  What attitude does Pip now take toward Joe and Biddy?

3.  What does Pumblechook want from Pip?

4.  Pip is off to start a new life.  If you don't know, what do you think will become of him?

Relevant Links: Great Expectations Online - Gutenberg  Project ; Dickens and Victorian Education

 

DLs:  JoanP, Marcie, PatH, Babi,   JoanK  

[marcie]

epergne... good ones Jude and PatH!


Pip in a recent chapter had gotten a deepened respect and affection for Joe (when Joe told Pip about his abusive father and why he allowed himself to be "raised by hand" also by Mrs. Joe). Now, as you bring up, JoanP, Pip is ashamed of Joe and his family.

He had a humiliating and somewhat frightening experience at Satis House. Why does he tell those extravagant stories about Satis House? Does it somehow agrandize him in the eyes of Mrs. Joe and Uncle P?

[Jonathan]

'they underlined almost everyting' - those grad students helping the editor with the new edition of GE. Dickens would have been very pleased to hear that. He put so much meaning into everything he wrote. Sometimes even more than he intended.

Are we right in thinking he was at the age at which we first met him, when he first meets Miss Havisham? About seven or eight? It turns out to be the most memorable day of his life. The impression of Satis House and its inmates cause him to steer a new course in life. Life becomes a stormy sea. But has he been there, done that?

The house is in ruins. And so is the brewery, which hold s curious fascination for him:

'...the brewery beyond, stood open, empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.'

How could he know that? It was thiry years later that he crossed the ocean to America with the wind blowing a gale.

The lies he tells about his new acquaintances, I believe, reflect the confusion in his mind.

[JoanP]

Well, I'll agree Pip comes home from Satis House, confused about his loyalty to his family, yet feeling Estella's criticism.  I think he came home with the lies -  protect Joe and his sister from his real feelings about them.  
 Pip suggested it, as it was the only game he knew.  I found this description of the card game they played: Beggar my neighbor.
 

"Given the chief disparity between Pip and Estella -- one of social class -- the name and nature of this card game tends to reinforce the socio-economic significance of their encounter.
 
 The game is played between two players, with a full deck; the object is to accumulate all the cards. The deck is divided between the two players, and the game commences when the first player plays a card, face up. If the card is a number-card (2-10), the other player plays a card. If, however, the card played is a court-card (jack, queen, king, or ace), the other player has to play a certain number of cards (if a jack was played by the first player, the second player must play one card; if a queen was played, two cards must be played; if a king, three cards; if an ace, four cards). If the cards thus played in accordance with the appearance of a court-card are number cards (2-10), player 1 (who played the court card) takes the trick and adds it to the bottom of his/her part of the deck. If, however, player 2 plays a court card in the process of furnishing the number of cards required, the tables turn, and player 1 has to issue the appropriate number of cards. The game goes on in this fashion until one of the players has possession of the whole deck (Collins, "...Beggar Your Neighbor").

More information than you needed?  The important thing here - Estella beat Pip at his own game.  More importantly, she finds something that emphasizes their class difference -

"He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy."   - Estella was going to find anything that would make him aware of the class difference his hands, his boots.
I don't know, I call them Jacks, too.  What does that say about my social standing?

Jonathan, I think of the two of them as about 8 years old too - though Dickens isn't clear about that.  If this is Pip looking back at this first visit, he might not have been too clear about his age either.  She does seem older but Pip says she is his age... just a little girl  -who might be wrong about the whole "knave" business...  But Pip believes everything she says about him.

[PatH]

I think Pip was totally overwhelmed by his first visit.  The whole setup was so strange.  On top of that, he is humiliated, made to feel that everything about himself is coarse and despicable, made to feel ashamed of his home.  He doesn't know what to make of it, needs time to process it all, certainly doesn't want to share his feelings with unsympathetic adults.  But he isn't given this time, he's badgered into telling about it.  It's a defensive mechanism to clam up about what really happened and to lie.

I'm surprised that he's believed, though.  Miss Havisham kept to herself, but you would think that Pumblechook, a townsman, would have some inkling of how she really lived.

[marcie]

Interesting point, Jonathan, about Pip's metaphors..

You say: "the brewery beyond, stood open, empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.'

How could he know that? It was thiry years later that he crossed the ocean to America with the wind blowing a gale."

JoanP, what you say about the stories that Pip told about Satis House makes sense: "I think he came home with the lies -  protect Joe and his sister from his real feelings about them."

What  you say, PatH, makes sense too: "I think Pip was totally overwhelmed by his first visit.  The whole setup was so strange.  On top of that, he is humiliated, made to feel that everything about himself is coarse and despicable, made to feel ashamed of his home.  He doesn't know what to make of it, needs time to process it all, certainly doesn't want to share his feelings with unsympathetic adults.  But he isn't given this time, he's badgered into telling about it.  It's a defensive mechanism to clam up about what really happened and to lie."

It's believable to me that Pumblechook has never stepped in the house and has never seen Miss Havisham.

 Dickens description of Miss Havisham is out of a fairy tale. It's not very believable that she would wear the wedding clothes day and night, including the one shoe, and that there would be much material left.

[Frybabe]

I liked the description of Pumblechook's business with the seed drawers and the corduroy pants. So, he was a seed and feed man, important to a farming community and to estate gardens. Pip did mention flower seeds. Pumblechook, while aspiring to a higher level of society, was not unused to physical labor. I expect he took Mrs. Joe's advice on feeding Pip because he was unused to dealing with children and their needs - not to mention it was less costly.

[JoanP]

Fry - I enjoyed Dickens' adjectives describing  Pumblechooks appearance and shop - "peppercorny,"   "farinaceous"...and the corduroy pants - they provide another contrast to the world  Pip is about to enter.  I think  the supreme irony is the devastation and squalor in which the Havishams are living compared with the neat and ordered world Pip comes from.

Marcie, Estella is also portrayed as a fairy tale princess too, isn't she - though a mean-spirited one?  She enters the room "like a star" - she is compared to the jewels on Miss Havisham's dressing table.  The inhabitants  of Satis House are unlike anyone from Pip's world.    You can't really blame him from being confused and at a loss trying to explain what the place was like - He really doesn't want to remember that Estella actually made him cry.  It isn't any wonder that his imagination kicked in and saved him from that memory.

Even though he was believed by everyone, he has to tell Joe how miserable he was, and why. A sign of his character that Pip's conscience makes him confess to Joe, wasn't it?   No velvet coach, no dogs, not even a puppy.  Joe is disappointed at that last - but his character comes through as he counsels Pip..."Lies is lies."  "Not the way to get out of being common."   Will Pip remember the advice he gets from this gentle teacher? 

[Jonathan]

'That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me.' Pip, at the end of chapter 9. Then he wonders if his reader hasn't had such a day, when the course of their life was changed for better or worse. Recall that at the beginning of the chapter he feels that his readers too, must have had, when young, moments when they had a 'dread of not being understood.' That was Pip's way of explaining the lies about the games at Miss Havisham.

Imagine spending an hour or two with a recluse such as Miss H. Imagine being Miss Havisham! In a state of permanent trauma. Will we eventually meet the man who left her desolate at the wedding altar?

It's becoming clear that the young Pip is comparing life styles. He's certainly giving the reader the truth about his feelings. Such exposure at such a young age. Such sensitivity to a variety of influences. With no hesitation about his reactions, or expressing his opinions about others. Except for Miss Havisham. He doesn't know what to make of her or express opinions, like he does, say, about Uncle Pumblechook:

That ass Pumblechook...a spectacle of imbecility...that detested seedsman...that fearful Impostor , Pumblechook...that basest of swindlers, Pumblechook...that diabolical corn-chandler...that abject hypocrite (with) his patronizing laugh.

One has to laugh at Pip's frankness, and his ability to express himself, when he chooses. No misunderstanding him.

Who will it be in the end, who has the greatest influence on him? Estella? Or Joe? He feels compelled to choose.

[PatH]

I'm a little surprised at the suddenness and completeness of Pip's change.  No time spent thinking it over, trying to make sense of what he's seen.  It's the sneering scorn of the lovely Estella that did it.  She's already well trained for what Miss Havisham wants her to be.

Yes, Jonathan, I too wonder if we'll meet the man who jilted Miss. H.  Judging from her unhealthy reaction, he maybe did well to run for his life.

[bookad]

Thank you Joan for your input yesterday-must go over again a few sections, I can see.....will look for a Norton edition....am presently reading it on my BlackBerry using gutenberg
Deb

[PatH]

Warning: the Norton is more expensive than most paperbacks, and the print is small.  The paper is really nice, though.

[JoanP]

"'That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me."

Jonathan, now it is  really clear that Pip is looking back to his younger self...with  understanding mixed with regret.  I'm reminded of Dickens early life as I read this...and sense that he is drawing from his own experience as he writes.
Though he heaps scorn and criticism on the adults who brought him up - with a few exceptions - he also criticizes the young boy as well.  But youth and inexperience can be excused, he seems to be saying.

 Pip makes false assumptions based on his limited understanding of the world, which he sees as a fairyland sort of place, filled with all sorts of magical possibilities.  Dickens is hinting that Miss Havisham is raising this  young girl  simpy to get revenge on the young man who jilted her.  If this is the case, then Pip had better look out.  
But looking at this situation with another lens, what might the reality be?  For some reason, Miss H has taken the young girl to raise.  Does anyone remember how this happened?  Is she
a relative?  Who would put a young child in the care of  this obviously disturbed woman?  

Miss Havisham does have other relatives - Pip meets them at his second visit.  They come and go, but surely they will play a part in the story; Dickens rarely expends  effort on his characters for a cameo appearance only... Do you remember how they are related?  Who is Camilla?  Related?  She seems quite familiar, though she does refer to her as Miss Havisham.  And Tom, who is he?  Whose funeral are they referring to? Maybe we are supposed to be as confused as Pip was as he listened to their conversation?

[JudeS]

Before we started the book I found a sight that listed all the characters and their relations to each other.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-Expectations.)
There is a list of Miss Havisham and her family (This is a six page printout).
Much of the material will give away the plot in future sections.
However Miss Havisham's relatives are listed as follows:

Cousin Raymond, an aging relative who is only interested in her money.Heis married to Camilla.

Georgiana, an aging relative who is interested in her money. She is one of many who hang around Miss H. for her wealth.

Sarah Pocket, "a dry, brown corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made out of walnut shells, and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers. Another relative interested only in the money.

Mathew Pocket, a cousin of Miss H. he is the patriarch of the Pockets but he is not greedy for her wealth. He has nine children, two nurses, a housekeeper, a cook and a pretty but useless wife named Belinda.He tutors young gentlemen who live on his estate.

Herbert Pocket, Son of Mathew and a presumed heir. Pip first meets him as a "pale young gentleman", who challenges Pip to a fight at miss H.s house when they are both children.

I have not written about Estella and her heritage in order not to give the story away.

[PatH]

Thanks for the relative list, Jude, it will help.  Goodness, all the ones we have met so far are nasty pieces of work.  Perhaps back then, when women were supposed to be so delicate, Camilla's fainting and taking to her bed out of worry for Miss Havisham, might be faintly convincing, but somehow I doubt it.

Thanks also for the warning about spoilers.

[Jonathan]

Wonderful question, Joan. Where is the reality in all this? With the Pockets discussing a funeral past and waiting for another - Miss Havisham's. And Miss Havisham obliging them by making the table with her wedding cake her bier when she dies, when they will all come together for a piece of her. And Dickens makes a waxwork tableau out of these characters. But then he was a great fan of Madam Tussaud's. A fellow artist, who set up shop just around the corner in London.

It took Pip less than five minutes, he tells us, to recognize the Pockets as 'toadies and humbugs'. And we can rely on his judgements. Just look at the value he puts on the kiss that Stella wants from him. A kiss from a common boy. Which he is, compared to the 'pale young gentleman,' whom he bests in a fight. Was it a fight between gentleman and commoner, or two boys envious of each other. Each wanting to learn from the other. Your right, Joan. What a fairy tale.

What's in a kiss?! And who is this guy with the scented hands? Another 'gentleman' who always finds himself in the wrong company?

[Frybabe]

I'd like to know who the man in the pub with Joe was, the one who gave Pip a shilling wrapped in two one-pound notes. I am surprised that Mrs. Joe didn't confiscate the shilling as well as the notes. I was pleased but surprised that she wanted to give the notes back. Maybe there will be more on this later.

[JoanP]

And Fry, did you see what Sister Joe did with that money after attempting to give it back to the man? I was really surprised she didn't snap it up for herself -

she

"sealed them up on a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental tea pot on the top of a press in the state parlour.  There they remained, as a nightmare to me, many and many a night and day."

The man had to be an acquaintance of Pip's convict, don't you think?  He must have been acting on his instructions to find Pip and reward him for his generosity...  I think someone will lift that teapot and find the notes in a later chapter...

Oh Jude, I hope you didn't come across too much of a spoiler in an attempt to identify Miss Havisham's visitors...  It's good to know that Dickens will be providing Estella's background and how she came to live with Miss Havisham - in future chapters.  For the sacrifice you made, we all thank you!

[JoanP]

Jonathan - you and Dickens have paired up to involve us in the humor of the morbid scene!  I believe you are on his exact wavelength!  I can see the two of you chuckling all through this scene.

"They somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug."

 Delicious!  Such insight into human nature!  Don't you think this is knowledge that occurs to Pip when he's older, Jonathan?


...I'm wondering if it is Estella who will one day inherit Miss Havisham's great wealth -  is she being prepared to steel herself from the many suitors she will have...is she  in training to break their hearts, do you suppose?  Will she ever be able to trust or is Miss Havisham training a cold heart?  Or do you believe that Miss Havisham is preparing the girl to break boys' hearts simply to avenge her own broken heart?

The strange boy - the Pockets'  boy, is a puzzle, isn'[t he?  His heart clearly isn't in the fight - is he following parents' orders?  He's trying his best to fight for Estella's attention, yet it is Pip who earns the kiss...

[marcie]

What helpful insights  here. Jonathan, I agree with JoanP that you have caught onto the humor in Dickens. His humor seems to put his more solemn thoughts into a greater perspective.

It does seem that Miss Havisham is preparing Estella to break boy's/men's hearts. Miss Havisham must have felt herself to be cruelly treated and seems to have decided that all men must suffer at the hand of Estella. If Estella is around 8 years old and Miss Havisham adopted her as an infant, that's only around 8 years at most that she has enacted the plan to use Estella to get back at "man" kind. I guess we may not find out why she is using Estella rather than becoming a femme fatale herself and ensnaring men after she was left by her husband-to-be, 30 years earlier.

Jude, thank you for the description of the relatives and the spoiler warning.

[Frybabe]

And Fry, did you see what Sister Joe did with that money after attempting to give it back to the man? I was really surprised she didn't snap it up for herself -

Yes, JoanP, is almost wrote that, but then thought perhaps I would be too hard on her. The temptation certainly would be there to rationalize keeping the money as a kind of compensation for taking Pip in to raise "by hand". Which brings up a question rumbling around in the back of my mind. Mrs. Joe seems a very strict (and perhaps straightlaced?) person. Was this part of her religious or home upbringing? Would Pip have been brought up in a similar environment had their parents lived? 

[bookad]

Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells....

Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom....

I enjoy Dicken's imaginative use of words like corrugated & fermenting & how he equates them with human description etc.--wonder if this type of description was outside of the usual for his time??

Deb

[PatH]

I think Mrs. Joe didn't keep the 2£ for herself because she's honest.  The stranger gave the shilling to Pip as a present, loudly saying he was doing so, but everyone assumed he didn't mean to give him the bills, that he just grabbed some paper from his pocket to wrap the shilling in, and would want them back.  Seems an unlikely mistake to me.

[PatH]

The whole incident in the pub is curious.  When no one but Pip is looking, the stranger stirs his drink with a file, looking straight at Pip.  He's either giving Pip a hint, or testing him to find out if he is really the boy who gave the file.

Pip immediately assumes this is the same file he stole for the convict.  Can he really recognize such a simple tool, or is this guilty conscience? Could it really be possible for the stranger to have it?  Surely it would have either been discarded after being used to cut the chains, or taken from the convict when he was recaptured.

[JoanP]

Pat, is it possible the convict hid the file, intending to get it back to Pip somehow? This would have to be a very honest criminal making an attempt to repay Pip for helping him out.  We never did hear the whole story about him - remember he was trying to capture another escapee...he could have gotten away, except he was caught as he cornered the second convict and called for help.  How do you remember that?

I can see Mrs. Joe keeping the money - as Fry sees it - in compensation for all those years she had to put up with raising Pip.  Didn't she keep the little money he earned doing odd jobs for the neighbors?  I don't think we've heard the last of that money now resting under the teapot - or the file, for that matter...

Dickens had a number of close friends, notable authors of the time, Deb - perhaps we can  find an answer to your question in their work.   William Thackery comes to mind - his Vanity Fair...

Please continue to share those examples of Dickens' powers of description!

[Babi]

  I am so far behind!  Lost our computer a week ago, along with everything on it, incl. my discussion notes. We now have a rebuilt Dell that is very different and will take some getting used
to. 
  So many posts, of course.  I do want to thank you, MARCIE, for pointing out that Joe's failure
to stand up to Mrs. Joe could be because he saw his mother abused by his father.  That is a
point that bothered me, but I can see how  this might explain Joe's submission to his wife.
   JOAN, you were asking why anyone would put a child into the hands of a disordered woman
like Miss Havisham.  This was apparently not long after the disastrous event, and her madness
may not have been that apparent.  Irregardless of that, you have an orphan child with no hope
of a decent life in those times, and a chance at a very good life under the protection of a wealthy
woman.  I would definitely go for the 'chance' vs the 'no hope'.

   There are so many different views of Pip's wild description of what he had seen at Miss Havisham's.  To me it was pure humor, bordering on slapstick.  I can just see Mrs. Joe and
Pumblechook agape with excitement and wonder, exclaiming over it all, and believing every
word of it.

[JoanP]

Babi...it is so good to see you making the rounds after a week's absence! Your post on Pip's invention of what went on at Satis House reminds me of his rich imagination all over again.  The swords and flags...the velvet coach.  I remember underlining one particular word that got my attention - did you notice it too? -

"

Out of a cupboard I saw pistols in it and jam - and pills."

 Did mention of pills get your attention?  I wonder what he was thinking of when he mentioned pills.

rHe was really carried away, but confessed to Joe shortly after that he made it all up.  It's a good thing because Miss Havisham wants Joe to come to Satis House on the next visit.  He'd have seen for himself that none of it was true...  I'm forgetting now why she needed Joe there when she said goodbye to Pip.  Do you remember?

[marcie]

Frybabe, that's a good observation and question about Mrs. Joe's upbringing. You say, "Mrs. Joe seems a very strict (and perhaps straightlaced?) person. Was this part of her religious or home upbringing? Would Pip have been brought up in a similar environment had their parents lived? " I hadn't thought of that. Did Pip's sister turn out very much like their mother?

Deb, I love those metaphors you cite. I appreciate your bringing them here so I can pay closer attention to them. Dickens uses so many colorful expressions that I don't pay enough attention to them.

PatH, I agree that the appearance of the file in the pub is somewhat farfetched but it certainly does add to the mysteries in this section. The file serves to remind us of the convict in Pip's past and, you are likely right, JoanP, that it probably foreshadows some events in the future.

Babi, I'm glad you're back with us. That's a great point -- Pip's wild description and the people for whom we have the least sympathy so far (Mrs. Joe and Uncle P) believing it all-- makes for a great comic interlude. I can just see Dickens acting it all out. I'm sure that Dickens was on the lookout for places where he could use his skill at farce to provide, as you say, "slapstick" entertainment to his readers.

[marcie]

Joan, I think that Miss Havisham invites Joe and Pip to her house to turn Pip over to Joe as a blacksmith apprentice. It seems to be a way of telling Pip that he's to remain a poor working boy; he won't participate in the upper class life that Miss H and Estella lead (although they appear to me to lead an awful life in that decrepit mansion).

I'm not sure why Pip would mention pills. I'm wondering if a prevalent use of pills occurred during Victorian times. I searched a bit and didn't exactly find an answer to my question but found a BBC show on the Victorian Pharmacy!!  See http://www.rpharms.com/history-of-pharmacy/victorian-pharmacy.asp and the interesting article linked from the right column of that page. The site for Season 1 of the program is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t3zhy

[PatH]

(although they appear to me to lead an awful life in that decrepit mansion).

I agree; it's hard to believe anyone would envy them.

[PatH]

It's time to tackle a new chunk.  There are new questions at the top of this page.  We can still talk about the old sections too.

A lot happens in this section, twists and turns in the lives of the characters.

[JoanP]

Thanks for that link, Marcie...it got me started in a consideration of what sort of pills were available at the time...which ones Pip may have seen at home, which made it into the imaginary cupboard at Satis House.  From that link I found myself in the middle of a larger issue that may have been affecting Dickens at the time he was writing Great Expectations.

Quackery and Dickens -
"He was a shrewd amusing man, this … “Professor,” and was very daring. He once enclosed a cheque for a thousand pounds in a letter to Charles Dickens, which he placed at Dickens’s disposal, on condition that one line of complimentary reference to Holloway’s cures should appear in the book which Dickens was then publishing in monthly numbers. The bearer waited for an answer. “What did you do?” I asked Dickens. “Do!” he cried; “I put the cheque back into the letter and sent it down to the messenger, saying that was all the answer I had to send!”

When you consider that Dickens not only refused to mention this "cure" in his book, but made the pills object of ridicule by placing them in Pip's far-fetched imaginary lies in the cupboard in Satis House...all the more amusing, I thought.

[JoanP]

Thanks for the nudge into the next chapters, Path - Pip's future is opening up for him - but he isn't too happy about it, is he?  Just what was he expecting?

Did you wonder why Miss Havisham decided to abruptly dismiss him from Satis House?  It seemed that she was beginning to like him and their  walks around the house and grounds.  Or was that simply how Pip saw it?    Would it be too much of a stretch to consider it a kind act on her part - providing for Pip's future by giving the family the  means to start Pip's apprenticeship?  This wasn't a casual decision for a family to make.  Money was involved - appearance before a court,  oaths sworn...
Here's an interesting link on what was involved with the Indentures:
 
 Apprenticeship in Victorian England
"In Great Expectations, Pip becomes an apprentice to Joe, the blacksmith. Miss Havisham generously paid Joe 25 pounds (several hundred dollars) so that he could afford to indenture Pip. The price to indenture your son to a master tradesmen is usually very expensive, because the master is expected to provide room and board for the child for seven years."

How old do you see Pip at this time?  Everyone  is ecstatic at Miss Havisham's generosity.  Everyone but Pip, that is...  What exactly was he expecting from her?
 

[Babi]

  Pip's connection with Satis house made him, for a while, a person of great interest to everyone,
and the hope of benefits to his family.  He must have felt a little proud of all this, awed to be
seeing all those grand things.  He was polite and helpful, and must have at least hoped they
liked him, too.  It would be very stressful, after all this, to be dismissed so casually and carelessly.  What did Pip expect?  He's a child, so I would suppose he thought his elders were
correct and that he would continue to be 'attached', as it were, to Satis House, and his life would
be bettered. 

[JoanK]

Would it be a stretch to imagine that Miss havisham got rid of Pip because Estella was at an age where she might have started to like him, instead of breaking his heart? that wouldn't do at all!

[JoanK]

Miss Havisham really did break his heart by taking him out of his environment, making him dissatisfied with it, then throwing him back in. It probably wouldn't have occured to Dickens or his readers to wonder why Pip is attracted to this (to us miserable) way of life. Of course, being "higher class" is better. Pip yearns for "better" things but, except for Estella, we aren't told what these better things are.

[Jonathan]

Yes, it's all about 'how Pip saw it'. And Pip remembers only that one day he had become too tall, literally, for Miss Havisham and so she sent him home. With a generous gift. To learn the blacksmithing trade. Pip cared nothing for her. By then it was too late. His life had been forever changed by Estella.

[hats]

This is hats. I have my book. Now I have to catch up along the way. Thank you for the invitation, Marcie. Hello to all discussion leaders and readers.

[PatH]

Hi, hats.  It's great to see you here.  I hope you enjoy the book.

[JoanP]

What a great way to start the week!  Good morning, hats!  I'm sure you will catch up with us in no time.  Can you tell us which edition you will be reading?  Some are more heavily footnoted than others.  If there is something that puzzles you, you have many friends here who will gladly lend a hand as you catch up.  We are finishing up Volume I this week - as Pip gets on with his future of great expectations.  We will be interested in your observations on the early chapters too.  You have the knack of noticing things that others don't.  Welcome, hats!  Look forward to hearing from you - even before you catch up.

Babi - "he thought he would continue to be 'attached', as it were, to Satis House" -   I think you're right - and even though Miss Havisham was quite generous with him, he felt dismissed when his services were no longer needed at the house.  Do you think he thought he could continue on there indefinitely as Miss Havisham's companion, even after Estella had left for school?  I don't think he ever entertained the idea that Miss Havisham would educate him, do you?  

As for why Miss Havisham "dismissed" him, I think you might be right, JoanK - I don't know how many months went by visiting the house, or how old they are now, but Estella did show some signs of "liking" Pip - maybe she even saw her kiss him!   Jonathan...I didn't remember that Pip looking back, remembered that "he was getting too tall" for Miss Havisham - this seems to indicate that he is noticably a growing boy - which confirms her reason for dismissing him.

Poor Pip - you can feel his misery, can't you?  His unhappiness with his own family...and Biddy.  What if he'd never gone to Miss Havisham's and laid eyes on Estella.  Biddy would have been a perfect mate for him, don't you think?  That's an interesting question, Pat.  Does Joe notice Pip's unhappiness at the forge?