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Great Expectations > GE, Chapters 23 - 24

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message 1: by Kim (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod
Hello fellow Curiosities,

This week we begin with Chapter 23 and we spend more time with the Pocket family, which I suppose we couldn't help spending time with seeing that Pip will be living there, until he becomes a gentleman that is. Mr. Pocket is described:

"He was a young-looking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very near being so."

And if the Pockets stay with us long Mrs. Pocket will become one of those characters I never forget whether I want to or not, she would be entered in my Dickens character list - which I don't have but if I did - she would be right up there with Mrs. Nickleby and Mrs. Jellyby. Asked by her husband if she had welcomed Pip she gave this unusual reply:

“Yes.” She then smiled upon me in an absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower water? "

A reply that reminded me of Mrs. Nickelby and the comments she would make that had little to do with the conversation or anything at all for that matter. Also, Mrs. Nickelby used to tell us about what a country gentleman her husband would have been if he lived, or breathed, or spent money, or not spent money, I can't remember exactly what the problem was. And now in Mrs. Pocket's case, she was:

"the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody’s determined opposition arising out of entirely personal motives,—I forget whose, if I ever knew,—the Sovereign’s, the Prime Minister’s, the Lord Chancellor’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s, anybody’s,—and had tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate address engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of some building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge."

The rest of the family reminds me of the Jellbys. Since Mrs. Pocket has been brought up to be "highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless" she can't be bothered by these household duties. The children are totally neglected by their mother, but so is Mr. Pocket, and the servants, and the house, and everything else that could be neglected. According to Pip:

"Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody else’s hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving trouble; but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants felt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been the kitchen,—always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for, before I had been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an extraordinary thing that the neighbors couldn’t mind their own business."

I wish the children had other people in their lives to show them affection, they aren't getting any from their mother who only thinks about herself and her grandfather. And I was hoping the nurses would be nice and loving to the children until I read that one had been seen slapping the baby. He also meets the two other men living with the Pockets, by name Drummle and Startop. Drummle, "an old-looking young man of a heavy order of architecture", and Startop, younger than Drummle, after reading that I was wondering if that made him older or younger than Pip but I don't know. Startop was "reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge." That's how I feel about math, the exploding part not the knowledge. I spent some amount of time this morning trying to figure out if 40% of something is the same as .40% of something, but the answers I got seemed so different and so not understandable I gave up.

They have their dinner with the already mentioned people plus a neighbor of the Pocket's:

"a widow lady [Mrs. Coiler] of that highly sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances"

When the meal ends the children are brought in: "There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby’s next successor who was as yet neither."

The baby is given to Mrs. Pocket and she holds him or her I forget -perhaps it is the one who might be either, she holds him upside down with his head under the table paying no attention at all. After being held upside down, forgotten on her lap, and playing with a nutcracker, a dangerous thing for a baby to have, the nurses manage to get all the children out of the room. The chapter ends with this:

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” returned the housemaid, “I should wish to speak at once, and to speak to master.”

Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of ourselves until he came back.

“This is a pretty thing, Belinda!” said Mr. Pocket, returning with a countenance expressive of grief and despair. “Here’s the cook lying insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!”

Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, “This is that odious Sophia’s doing!”

“What do you mean, Belinda?” demanded Mr. Pocket.

“Sophia has told you,” said Mrs. Pocket. “Did I not see her with my own eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask to speak to you?”

“But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,” returned Mr. Pocket, “and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?”

“And do you defend her, Matthew,” said Mrs. Pocket, “for making mischief?”

Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.

“Am I, grandpapa’s granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?” said Mrs. Pocket. “Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman, and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.”

There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a hollow voice, “Good night, Mr. Pip,” when I deemed it advisable to go to bed and leave him."



message 2: by Kim (last edited Mar 04, 2017 08:24PM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod
In Chapter 24 we learn what Pip has been sent to Mr. Pocket to learn. Nothing apparently, nothing toward a career anyway.

"After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny if I could “hold my own” with the average of young men in prosperous circumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary."

Pip wishes to room with Herbert instead of with the Pockets and Mr. Pocket agrees, he returns to the office of Mr. Jaggers to get enough money to buy furniture for the apartment. After going back and forth with Jaggers as to how much he would need he ends up getting 20 pounds. Mr. Jaggers leaves but Pip stays behind and talks with Wemmick. Wemmick shows him the casts of two of their most famous clients. One had murdered his master, the other forged wills - not something I would think to get hung for but he was. Why they have casts of two men they apparently lost the cases for or they wouldn't have got hung in the first place, I don't know. You would think they'd pick people who they had helped by keeping them away from ropes and platforms with holes in them, things like that. Wimmick asks him to come and dine with him, he would like Pip to see his house, with it's curiosities. The chapter ends with the two going to see Mr. Jaggers "at it".

"The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day."


message 3: by Peter (last edited Mar 04, 2017 08:53PM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Peter | 3568 comments Mod
Kim wrote: "Hello fellow Curiosities,

This week we begin with Chapter 23 and we spend more time with the Pocket family, which I suppose we couldn't help spending time with seeing that Pip will be living there..."


And hello to you Kim.

Mrs Pocket is rather useless, isn't she? Come to think of it Mr Pocket seems to be uninspiring. And then we have all the young Pocket's and then there is the widow lady. One might say that the Pocket's are a rather empty family. Just fluff and some loose change, really.

OK. Bad puns, but I think Dickens has a purpose. I think this chapter is interesting stylistically in that we have the narrator introducing and presenting a group of people that seem to have little purpose. Somewhere in the distant past Mrs Pocket was " the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased Knight" whose lineage is questionable. Mr Pocket is apparently educated, but there seems to be many gaps in his grasp on reality and insight. We have, therefore, a person of standing and an educated man who are emblems of what Pip hopes to become, and yet, as an observer of them, he realizes that they lack substance.

It seems that Pip is destined to continue his pursuit of what he believes will make him a gentleman and thus a suitable man for Estella. Regrettably, this pursuit seems to be as doomed to failure in London as it was on the marshes.

Apparently the only thing Pip is learning is that to become a gentleman requires money, and it appears Pip will be very successful at spending money.

When will Pip ever learn?


Mary Lou | 2701 comments It seemed that Matthew was much more "together" for lack of a better word, when he was alone with Pip, which makes me think that perhaps he would have been a different man had he married a wife who was a bit more grounded in reality. He was, after all, the only one with the good sense and strength of character to warn Miss H. away from her intended. I think, as far as Belinda goes, he's learned that there are battles he can't win, and he's just given up trying to fight them. We can commend Matthew for not beating the woman, because I think I'D have a go at her given a chance.

The servants take their liberties, certainly, but they do seem to intervene before anything too tragic strikes the children, so that's something, I suppose. As well as Herbert has turned out, we can assume that the household is a good-natured one, if not traditionally loving and caring. Or was Mrs. Pocket a more conscientious mother when she was younger and had just a couple of children?

Belinda and Matthew remind me just a bit of Hyacinth and Richard Bucket ("Keeping Up Appearances") - Hyacinth always pretending to be aristocratic, and Richard always exasperated, but never putting his foot down and telling her to knock it off. Hyacinth, though, is a bit more energetic (not having servants) and does her own dusting.


Mary Lou | 2701 comments The casts! Like Tulkinghorn's Allegory, they seem to keep watch over all the goings-on in that office. Creepy. The painting seemed to be accusatory. What about the masks?

Kim -- did they do casts of living people? I don't remember ever seeing any. But I have seen death masks, so maybe that's why he had those rather than masks of people whose cases he won. Still creepy to have them at all, though. One would think such a thing would cost money -- why would he pay to have them made and then display them so prominently in his office? A 19th century attempt at "Scared Straight" perhaps?

Some death masks of some historic types:
http://www.abroadintheyard.com/25-dea...


Peter | 3568 comments Mod
We have the introduction of Pip's schoolmates and if Dickens is true to his habit of having a person's name reveal something of the character or nature these are two interesting individuals. First we have Bentley Drummle. Drummle. Rather dreary, heavy sounding, and we are told that Pip found Drummle to be "a sulky kind of fellow)". Pip portrays Startop as a reader whose head might explode. Still, the name Startop has a suggestion of height and light. We shall see.

To me, a central point in the chapter occurred when Pip engaged a coach to teach him the art of rowing. Thinking he was paying a compliment, the coach tells Pip he "had the arm of a blacksmith" to which Pip rather than acknowledging the truth of the statement says "[i]f he could have known how nearly the compliment had lost him his pupil, I doubt he would have paid it." Pip continues to hid and bury his past as he strives to become a gentleman.

I found it interesting that this chapter was one that had a focus on the pasts of Mr and Mrs Pocket. How does the past form and inform who we will become in the future is an idea that seems to be emerging in the novel.


message 7: by Xan (last edited Mar 06, 2017 03:37AM) (new) - added it

Xan  Shadowflutter (shadowflutter) | 1014 comments I loved the humor in chapter 23. Is there a parallel -- there I go again -- between Pip and Mrs. Pocket. She forgives the cook when she is found drunk and passed out on the kitchen floor because the cook once told her she looked like a duchess. Pip wants to be a gentleman, but I'm wondering if he can give a better reason for wanting to be one than the esteem that comes with being one. Can Mrs. Pocket give a better reason? And, as Peter points out, there is Pip's reaction to almost being called a blacksmith, which is not unlike Mrs' Pocket's reaction to anyone who disturbs her fantasy of being royalty by inserting reality into it. Isn't this desire of Mrs. Pocket to be royalty a reflection of Pip's desire to be a gentleman? And is there a warning here for Pip? Has Pip replaced reality with fantasy in his quest for esteem in the same way Mrs. Pocket has in hers?

Mr. Pocket reminds me of Mr. Jellyby. Circumstances are beyond both their control, and Mr. Pocket is becoming as incapacitated and ineffective as was Mr. Jellyby.

How can the Pocket family afford all those servants? And a bit sarcastically, how can they afford not to have them?


message 8: by Xan (new) - added it

Xan  Shadowflutter (shadowflutter) | 1014 comments What might our experience with the Pocket family tell us about Herbert?


Mary Lou | 2701 comments Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "I loved the humor in chapter 23. Is there a parallel -- there I go again -- between Pip and Mrs. Pocket. She forgives the cook when she is found drunk and passed out on the kitchen floor because th..."

Excellent observation, Xan.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
I must confess that I was very amazed at Mr. Pocket and his domestic situation. From what we were able to learn about him up to now, I would have taken him for quite another man. From what we learned from the sycophants' talk at Miss Havisham's, Mr. Pocket is a man who does not do any time-service for his rich cousin and later, his son tells Pip that he was the only one to tell her that she had better not trust that fake-gentleman suitor of hers. We also learn that after being turned out of Miss Havisham's house, he would never enter it again for fear of being regarded as somebody who is ready to humiliate himself for the sake of money. And he coined that adage that outward appearance and manner is not what makes a gentleman, but it is rather what is inside a man.

All this made me expect quite another man - a serious, self-confident and organized man, but what we get is - as most of you said already - someone who in many ways is like Mr. Jellyby. Just consider his mannerism of trying to lift himself by his hair when he is in despair; it's like Mr. Jellyby placing his head against the wall. And yet, there is a difference: There are times when Mr. Pocket does speak up against the follies of his wife and his servants, something Mr. Jellyby would never have done.

Still, though, I really wonder at Mr. Pocket's inefficiency and the state of his home.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Another thing I noted - and it takes up what Peter said in his first comment in this thread - is that the Pockets are an example of great expectations, like Pip. Mrs. Pocket's great expectations consisted in marrying somebody with a title, and with a certain financial background, whereas Mr. Pocket's expecatations consisted in becoming that kind of man once he had married his intended. And yet, somehow Mr. Pocket failed to fulfil his wife and her family's expectations - maybe also because his wife was simply useless, having no practical knowledge of the world whatsoever, by dint of the expectations and pretensions she was taught to entertain. The following sentence sums their domestic mess up quite well:

"Still, Mrs Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because he had never got one."


Failed expectations, because they were founded to some degree (especially on Mrs. Pocket's part) on the belief that the world owes you something ... I see some parallel between the Pockets - and their son Herbert is also given to building grand castles in the air - and our friend Pip.

As to Pip, what unsettles me about him is his readiness to be taken in by flattery. He admits, for instance, that at first he quite liked Mrs. Croiler's obsequious and dishonest flatteries but then found that she was overdoing it, thus spoiling it for him. Can we not rightfully conclude that a more experienced sycophant will be more successful with him?


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Chapter 24 settled a question to me that had long been pending: Whether Mr. Jaggers is just an unpolished gem, or really as bad as he seems. And as you might have guessed, what I learned here settled the question for me in favour of the last of the two possibilities. What finally tipped the scales for me was not so much his bullying behaviour towards Pip when our young hero asked him for money - maybe, it would do Pip some good to consider the worth of money - but the information Wemmick gives about him, e.g. that his housekeeper is a woman he has "tamed" in a way. In other words, Jaggers is living in the same house with a woman whom he holds under his thumb, hardly a state of affairs that promises the carefree and soothing atmosphere of a comfy home. Does Jaggers derive some sick form of pleasure from having other people under his thumb?


message 13: by Kim (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod


This chap murdered his master."

Chapter 24

John McLenan

1861

Text Illustrated:

"“Pray,” said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them caught my sight again, “whose likenesses are those?”

“These?” said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off the horrible heads before bringing them down. “These are two celebrated ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap (why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his master, and, considering that he wasn’t brought up to evidence, didn’t plan it badly.”

“Is it like him?” I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.

“Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn’t you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, “Had it made for me, express!”

“Is the lady anybody?” said I.

“No,” returned Wemmick. “Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, didn’t you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one,—and she wasn’t of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn’t have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to drink in it.” Wemmick’s attention being thus directed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.

“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked. “He has the same look.”

“You’re right,” said Wemmick; “it’s the genuine look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though” (Mr. Wemmick was again apostrophizing), “and you said you could write Greek. Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!” Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of his mourning rings and said, “Sent out to buy it for me, only the day before.”

While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands."



message 14: by Kim (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod


"This chap . . . . murdered his master"

by F. A. Fraser. c. 1877


message 15: by Kim (last edited Mar 06, 2017 09:57AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod
Since illustrations for these chapters seem to be nonexistent which surprises me, I would have thought the Pockets would have given the illustrators quite a lot to work with, I did find this in my search:





message 16: by Xan (new) - added it

Xan  Shadowflutter (shadowflutter) | 1014 comments I find it interesting that two of Mr. Jaggers most memorable cases are one's he's lost. They went to the gallows did they not? Would you proudly display your loses for your customers to see? Does Jaggers win cases?


message 17: by Xan (new) - added it

Xan  Shadowflutter (shadowflutter) | 1014 comments Tristram wrote: "I must confess that I was very amazed at Mr. Pocket and his domestic situation. From what we were able to learn about him up to now, I would have taken him for quite another man. From what we learn..."

Yes, Tristram, I'm very disappointed in Mr. Pocket, but then my great expectations of Mr. Pocket had been formed by testimony from Herbert, a man who thinks he won a fight he badly lost and who thinks himself a shipping magnate when he is but a worker in a counting firm. There is more than a little of mom and dad on display in Herbert. Let's see how Pip and he get along as roommates? I suspect Pip will be paying the entire rent before long.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: " I suspect Pip will be paying the entire rent before long. "

But then again, Mr. Pocket might oppose to this because after all, he is a very independent sort of person and could not stand the idea arising that his son might profit financially from Pip, and I have a feeling that Herbert himself would not readily accept being treated to the rent.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Kim wrote: "Since illustrations for these chapters seem to be nonexistent which surprises me, I would have thought the Pockets would have given the illustrators quite a lot to work with, I did find this in my ..."

Kim, I can't help it but I have always found dollhouses eerie.


Natalie Tyler (doulton) When Wemmick says (Chapter 24) that "it's not personal; it's professional" I thought of the _Godfather_ films where they say "It's not personal; it's only business".

He then brings up the idea of collecting "portable property" (one of the many reasons I love this character) and makes a personal invitation for Pip to dine at his house in Walworth.


Mary Lou | 2701 comments Kim wrote: "Since illustrations for these chapters seem to be nonexistent which surprises me, I would have thought the Pockets would have given the illustrators quite a lot to work with, I did find this in my ..."

A Satis doll house would actually be kind of cool for someone who collects Dickens themed stuff. But the one pictured looks too much like a Disney princess castle. I'm too lazy to look up the description Dickens gives, but I imagine more of a Georgian facade.

I like the Pip and Estella dolls!


Mary Lou | 2701 comments PS Plus, it's a doll house that becomes more authentic the less it's dusted! :-)


message 23: by Kim (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod
I typed in "what does Satis house look like" or something like that and got this:



I'm not sure why I got an actual photograph of the house that was imagined by Dickens, but it is much larger than I imagine. Here's a few more:






Mary Lou | 2701 comments I love the first photo - especially the overgrown vines on the gate. I did some Googling, too, and found a site that said this was the house used in the 2012 film version.

Other sites said that Restoration House in Rochester was Dickens inspiration. http://www.restorationhouse.co.uk/


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Mary Lou wrote: "PS Plus, it's a doll house that becomes more authentic the less it's dusted! :-)"

But that is true of all sort of furniture, as I keep telling my wife.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
It's probably because of the high and forbidding gate that the house in the first photo was chosen to represent Satis House in the film. The house in the second picture, however, looks more like a building from a fairy tale for me - and I cannot help thinking that it might be made from gingerbread -, whereas the last building is credible, only it is not very derelict, and the lawn in front is too much of an open space, whereas Satis House to me is connected with narrowness and wilderness.


message 27: by Kim (new) - rated it 5 stars

Kim | 6417 comments Mod
If you want to have a Satis house of your own, here is one you can buy on ebay:



Dept 56 - Great Expectations Satis Manor

This building was introduced to the Literary Classics Collection in 1998 and retired in 2001.
The original suggested retail price was $110.00.

This set of 4 (house & 3 figurines) plus the book has never been displayed.
All pieces are in mint condition.

The original box is shelf worn.



Everyman | 827 comments Mod
Kim wrote: "Pip wishes to room with Herbert instead of with the Pockets and Mr. Pocket agrees, he returns to the office of Mr. Jaggers to get enough money to buy furniture for the apartment."

I liked that one of the reasons Pip wanted to room with Herbert was to help him with the cost of the room and living expenses. I can see the two of them becoming good friends, not withstanding their less than auspicious introduction to each other.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
It also shows that Pip still (?) has a sense of putting the money that is lavished upon him to good purposes instead of just using it to uplift himself and hide his past.


message 30: by Bionic Jean (last edited Mar 19, 2017 03:15PM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Bionic Jean (bionicjean) "Satis House" was based on "Restoration House" in Rochester, Kent. Charles II stayed there on his return to England in 1660, restoring the English monarchy after Oliver Cromwell.

Here is the original:



And here's their website - link here. You can visit the house.


Peter | 3568 comments Mod
Field Trip anyone?


Bionic Jean (bionicjean) I'll meet you there! :)


Everyman | 827 comments Mod
Jean wrote: ""Satis House" was based on "Restoration House" in Rochester, Kent. Charles II stayed there on his return to England in 1660, restoring the English monarchy after Oliver Cromwell.

Here is the origi..."


I wonder how much the inside matches the description of Dickens's Satis House. For starters, there doesn't seem to be the courtyard or brewery that Pip described. But it does have a walled garden.


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
The house front does look forbidding in a way so that it is a good model for Satis House. As to the field trip, do you think they'd allow us to have a barbecue in the garden?


message 35: by Bionic Jean (last edited Mar 22, 2017 02:40AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Bionic Jean (bionicjean) If I ever get there I'll report back! I don't see why it shouldn't be possible even on public transport. (Chris's problem is still ongoing - he had a little operation yesterday to have a monitor implanted in his chest yesterday, to see if he needs a pacemaker. I'm disappointed to hear he can't get any radio stations on it ;) But I digress...)

Do you think maybe Dickens merged ideas and mental images to come up with his own? So it's really the architectural features of this one, rather than any feeling of neglect of the house, or desolation of the garden? They couldn't really leave it like that I suppose...


message 36: by Ami (last edited May 10, 2017 07:15AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Ami | 374 comments Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "What might our experience with the Pocket family tell us about Herbert?"

I originally thought he probably was not raised by them since he actually appears to be hard working and virtuous? The absence of a strong foundation formed in these formative years we see the Pockett children, I can't imagine children raised by negligent parents having an easy time coming into their own...It doesn't mean they cannot, however.

I'm very disappointed in Mr. Pocket, but then my great expectations of Mr. Pocket had been formed by testimony from Herbert, a man who thinks he won a fight he badly lost and who thinks himself a shipping magnate when he is but a worker in a counting firm. There is more than a little of mom and dad on display in Herbert.
Right, but this is also via the perception of Pip who isn't a very emotionally evolved character, he is still someone who is unable to discern between somebody who sets lofty goals and a day dreamer.


message 37: by Ami (last edited May 10, 2017 07:17AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Ami | 374 comments Chapter 23, in the thick of the Pockett lifestyle, read to me as if I was reading a Swift novel. It was absurd, and definitively child abuse at play...Was it not?

Goodness! Two parents, two nannies, and seven children...And the kids are still running amok. Dickens writes about the social injustice children endure all too well, however, the Pockett children scenario was by far the most alarming and hair raising for me-This must be the reason behind Mr. Pockett's disturbed hair? What must it be like for a child to be constantly ignored by their parents while in their presence? Ugh.


message 38: by Ami (last edited May 10, 2017 07:21AM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

Ami | 374 comments Natalie wrote: "When Wemmick says (Chapter 24) that "it's not personal; it's professional" I thought of the _Godfather_ films where they say "It's not personal; it's only business".

He then brings up the idea of..."


When Wemmick says (Chapter 24) that "it's not personal; it's professional" I thought of the _Godfather_ films where they say "It's not personal; it's only business".
Absolutely! Yet another reason why I like Mr. Jaggers...He's all about the business, and getting it done. He's helpful to those who are in need and willing to pay for his expertise. Oh, and Jaggers's bright creaking boots... he sometimes caused to creak, as if "they" laughed in a dry and suspicious way...Apparently, he has his his own way of doing most everything, even emoting?


Tristram Shandy | 5005 comments Mod
Ami wrote: "Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "What might our experience with the Pocket family tell us about Herbert?"

I originally thought he probably was not raised by them since he actually appears to be hard work..."


Yes, Ami, at first sight, it seems inconsistent for Herbert to be a rather thrifty and well-organized person. But then he is the eldest child, and maybe the Pocket household, which, by the way, reminded me of the Duchess's household in Alice in Wonderland, was not yet as hopelessly helter-skelter when there was but one child to attend to. Apart from that, even Herbert shows signs of inefficiency, e.g. his tendency to consider "looking about him" as doing any actual work and taking any serious steps onwards.


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