The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hi Fellow-Curiosities,

We have now, in Chapter 54, reached a major event of the novel, namely Magwitch’s rescue expedition, which consists in rowing the ex-convict downstream to get him aboard one of two steamers heading for Hamburg, or Rotterdam, respectively. The character of this chapter as some kind of turning-point is reflected in the very first passage, which closes thus:

”Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was wholly set on Provis’s safety. I only wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.”

We see that Pip’s major concern is with Provis’s safety now, although we do not really know, why – maybe, this is for purely selfish reasons. The following sentence, however, intimates that we are on the eve of a fateful, portentous expedition. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help thinking that the apparently harmless rowing excursion with which they plan to mislead potential observers does not really ring true. Even if Pip has done some rowing on a regular basis, as he was careful to do, why should he do so now, when his arm is visibly in a sling? This looks rather suspicious, doesn’t it?

Pip starts out, with Herbert and Startop as rowers, and as soon as they arrive at Mill Pond Bank, Magwitch joins them. It’s quite interesting, by the way, that the narrator mirrors the secrecy as to the person they are transporting by not using his name in the narration – except when Magwitch himself uses it. Another interesting point is that the ex-convict himself is the least worried of the men, i.e. he is conscious of danger but has a more cold-blooded approach to it. This behaviour, and some of their conversation, makes Pip think about why Magwitch should have risked his freedom and his life under the impression of one mastering idea (his coming to England to see Pip as a gentleman) – and he quickly settles the question as follows:

”But I reflected that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man.”

Why should Pip arrive at such a conclusion?

During their journey downriver, Magwitch also talks about how impossible it is to foresee events and to influence them, which can be seen as an involuntary comment on Pip’s way of dealing with his “expectations”. When it is getting dark, they finally stop and spend the night at a rather shabby public-house, where they learn – through the “Jack”, i.e. the man of odd jobs – that apparently there had been a boat of Custom House men in plain clothes around a short while ago. This news startles Pip, all the more so since at night, he happens to see two men inspect the boat with which they have transported Magwitch. Nevertheless, Pip and his two friends – Startop by now is in on what is really going on – decide to carry on their original plan, and so, instead of staying on at the public-house and wait for one of the steamers there, they continue their journey the next morning. This decision proves to be unluckily, because when finally the first of the two steamers comes into sight, they also notice “a four-oared galley shoot[ing] out from under the bank but a little way ahead of us, and row[ing] out into the same track.” A little time later, one of the man in that galley orders them to surrender the “returned Transport” they have on board, and as the galley is very skilfully manoeuvred, Pip and his friends soon find themselves side to side with the boat, and the ensuing events follow each other very quickly. Magwitch seems to realize that one of the men on board the galley – a man equally cloaked like he is – is none other than Compeyson, and he makes for this traitor, while he is grabbed by one of the other men – my edition says it must have been the Thames River Police. At the same time, the Hamburg steamer is coming towards them, and it appears that not only Magwitch and Compeyson go overboard but also Pip, and his friends. Pip is pulled out of the water into the galley, together with Herbert and Startop, but the Rotterdam steamer passes them, and there is still no sign of the two other men. At last, they manage to pull Magwitch aboard, who is badly injured and seems past recovery. According to the Transport, the struggle between him and Compeyson was interrupted when the second steamer came by – but look as they may, they find no trace of the second man.

However, Pip now sees Magwitch in a different light:

”We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch’s side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived.

For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.”

Magwitch also makes a remark that can be read in two ways, namely:

”’Dear boy,’ he answered, ‘I’m quite content to take my chance. I’ve seen my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.’

Pip implies that Magwitch might still think that his possessions will go over to Pip, but maybe, one can also read this statement in a different way?

What I don't understand is why Pip, Herbert, and Startop weren't also all arrested for helping an escapee. Surely that was a crime back then as it is now. But Dickens doesn't even mention the possibility that they may be in some jeopardy for their part in harboring a criminal and trying to help him escape justice.

Yes, Tristram, the rowing expedition does seem suspicious. Pip still tends to act impulsively when he sets his sights on something. Be it becoming a gentleman, loving Estella or fleeing with Magwitch, he has an energy that interferes with a need for more considered thought and contemplation.

In this instance, we have Dickens reflecting back on our first introduction of Pip to Magwitch. While the venue is somewhat changed, the events are not. Pip tells us that the place he is with Magwitch "was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon." We learn that in this setting there is "a little squat shoal-lighthouse" and a "grizzled ... slimy and smeary" Jack who is wearing "interesting relics that he had taken from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore." The sign of the house where Pip and the others are staying is "the Ship." Unable to sleep, Pip looks out the window and sees "two men moving over the marsh."

Now, it is tempting to dismiss any similarities in this scene as being coincidence, but I would suggest Dickens is the master of coincidence. Here again is a beacon, and the remnants of a dead man that link us to the gibbet of the first chapter. The article of clothing focussed on is a pair of boots. The boots are the pair of a dead man. Is it a coincidence or yet another link to the novel's beginning that the place Pip and Magwitch are staying in is called the Ship? Magwitch in this chapter is trying to escape the Hulks. Actually, worse than the Hulks, Magwitch is trying to escape death by hanging -the gibbet.

Further, once again we have a momentous struggle and fight between Magwitch and Compeyson. Once again, Pip sees Magwitch shackled by the authorities. The difference in this incident is we are told that "the hunted wounded shackled creature " held Pip's hand. (My italics) Once again, echoing the first chapters, Magwitch's identity is dehumanized to that of an animal, not a human. At this point Pip has a minor epiphany when he realizes that in Magwitch he sees "a much better man than I had been to Joe."

In this chapter Dickens has returned his readers to the novel's beginning. The setting, the style, the language, the imagery all resonate with us. The major difference is, of course, the Pip who is recounting the events in this chapter is much older, and thus much closer to the events as the occurred. Pip's journey to this point in the novel has been frayed and fragmented at best; however, it has led him -and the reader- to an important juncture in the novel. When Pip promises to Magwitch that "I will never stir from your side ... Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me" he speaks words of insight and maturity. What Pip promises may well manifest themselves in ways he could not imagine.

We shall see ...

That's really a good question. I think they were not arrested because nobody brought action against them. As far as I know, there never was a public prosecutor in Victorian England because people were afraid that the power of the state to automatically prosecute people suspected of crimes would eventually infringe on their personal liberty. Therefore, the victim of a crime had to press charges against the criminal, but there was also the chance for a magistrate to do this. Unless this happened, criminals were not tried. I don't know what the procedure in a murder case was; maybe here, it was the coroner who pressed charges. In Pip's case, apparently nobody pressed charges against them for aiding and abetting a transported ex-convict to leave the country.

Strictly speaking, maybe this was not even a crime. Mind that Magwitch was not a criminal on the run, but rather an ex-convict who had atoned for his crimes, but who was not allowed to return to England. Magwitch's offense consisted in returning to his native country, and Pip had not part in helping him to do this. On the contrary, Pip was involved in getting him out of the country. Maybe, there was no law forbidding anybody to see to it that somebody who was illegally in England left the country.

Maybe some of our English members know better about these details?

Peter wrote: "Now, it is tempting to dismiss any similarities in this scene as being coincidence, but I would suggest Dickens is the master of coincidence. "

Not coincidence at all. Once they had decided to intercept the steamer down river (now that was a strange decision, wasn't it?) they were in the section of the river opposite to the marshes where Pip grew up. The land on both sides of the river is pretty much the same there. But your points about the pub being called the ship and the dead man's boots are indeed excellent and telling. And just as Magwich was discovered in the presence of Compeyson right when he was retaken after his escape from the Hulks, now he goes into the water (where he was also the first time) in the presence of Compeyson right before he is retaken after leaving the Ship. How much more parallel could you ask for?

Tristram wrote: "As far as I know, there never was a public prosecutor in Victorian England"

A magistrate could have laid the charges, I think without a form complaint, though I'm not positive.

Everyman wrote: "Tristram wrote: "As far as I know, there never was a public prosecutor in Victorian England"

A magistrate could have laid the charges, I think without a form complaint, though I'm not positive."

http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11376...

Kim, thanks for that very interesting link! I still wonder how murderers were indicted if it was the victim's responsibility to press charges against a criminal :-)

I thought the same thing.

This installment I have only found two illustrators. I suppose they all must have been tired from illustrating the last chapter.



"He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and ankles."

Chapter 54

John McLenan

1861

Text Illustrated:

"What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled at the wrists and ankles."

Boundless Confidence

Chapter 54

F. W. Pailthorpe

c. 1900

Text Illustrated:

"While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the Jack—who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore—asked me if we had seen a four-oared galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have gone down then, and yet she “took up too,” when she left there.

“They must ha’ thought better on’t for some reason or another,” said the Jack, “and gone down.”

“A four-oared galley, did you say?” said I.

“A four,” said the Jack, “and two sitters.”

“Did they come ashore here?”

“They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I’d ha’ been glad to pison the beer myself,” said the Jack, “or put some rattling physic in it.”

“Why?”

“I know why,” said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much mud had washed into his throat.

“He thinks,” said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,—“he thinks they was, what they wasn’t.”

“I knows what I thinks,” observed the Jack.

“You thinks Custum ‘Us, Jack?” said the landlord.

“I do,” said the Jack.

“Then you’re wrong, Jack.”

“AM I!”

In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into it, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could afford to do anything.

“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.

“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked ‘em overboard. Swallered ‘em. Sowed ‘em, to come up small salad. Done with their buttons!”

I once read (teachers - jump in here!) that any time a character is in water, the reader should look at baptism/rebirth symbolism. We definitely see that here. Pip's adventure in the river has been almost a resurrection following the "crucifixion" he suffered in the previous chapters at the hands of Orlick. Look at the pictures, and how he is tied up -- all he needs is to have his arms outstretched.

So is Pip a Christ-like figure? He seems willing to sacrifice himself for Magwich (though, as Everyman astutely observed, he doesn't get charged for abetting Magwich's escape).

Something to watch out for as the story comes to an end.

Mary Lou wrote: "I once read (teachers - jump in here!) that any time a character is in water, the reader should look at baptism/rebirth symbolism. We definitely see that here. Pip's adventure in the river has been..."

That's a fascinating speculation.

But it would seem, if that's what's happening (one wonders whether Dickens was au courant with literary symbolism at that level) that would also be true Magwitch. Pip just gets ducked in and out, but Magwitch gets the full immersion baptism, gets a wound in his side, is condemned as a criminal, and is the one who will actually be put to death shortly, hanging from a gallows rather than a cross, but still death at the hands of the legal authorities. He returned from his time in the wilderness of Australia only to face the vengeance of the law. His previous compatriot and companion has now turned Judas, identifying him for the authorities. And doesn't his “My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours” have echoes of Jesus's “It is finished” (John 19:30)?

And Magwitch, rather than Pip, it seems to me, is the one who has redeemed himself.

I do like your speculation, but I think perhaps it fits Magwitch better than Pip.

Mary Lou wrote: "I once read (teachers - jump in here!) that any time a character is in water, the reader should look at baptism/rebirth symbolism. We definitely see that here. Pip's adventure in the river has been..."

I would agree with the assessment about water you suggest. Symbols do take on a life of their own depending on the text, but in general, the baptism/rebirth concept is correct. In addition, I would say that water symbolism also suggests the concept of death and the eternal. For example, in Dombey and Son, Dickens invokes the sea as a symbol of death first with the death of Mrs. Dombey and then with the death of young Paul Dombey. The presence of the sea then tracks throughout the remainder of the novel.

Water as a symbol of the eternal is seen in that wonderful ending of The Great Gatsby. ... "and so we beat on, boats against the current ..."

Everyman wrote: "Mary Lou wrote: "I once read (teachers - jump in here!) that any time a character is in water, the reader should look at baptism/rebirth symbolism. We definitely see that here. Pip's adventure in t..."

Aah... you're right, Everyman. With Pip being our main character, I never considered Magwitch being our Christ figure, and it really does fit so much better. So Magwitch dies for Pip's sins, and Pip is redeemed. It fits beautifully. Thanks for turning my head an inch or two so I could get the bigger picture!

Mary Lou wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Mary Lou wrote: "I once read (teachers - jump in here!) that any time a character is in water, the reader should look at baptism/rebirth symbolism. We definitely see that here. Pip..."

Mary Lou

Everyman's insights are very important and open up the doors for much else that can be symbolic.

It is Magwitch who rises from the grave in the churchyard of Chapter I to face Pip. It is Magwitch that Pip steals bread and brandy (substitute for wine) to feed Magwitch. Here we see the referents for bread and wine of communion. It is at the end of Chapter I that Pip watches Magwitch travel towards the only two marked reference points on the marshes which are the beacon, which symbolizes good, life and light, and the gibbet, which symbolizes evil/death and darkness. We read that Magwitch tilts Pip three times in Chapter I which disorients him. Now that action of disorientation could be linked to Pip's name. Consider that both Pip and the surname Pirrip are the same both backwards and forwards and you see how Pip is a person who could be seen as two separate people or or a person viewed two separate ways.

The episode of Pip taking food for Magwitch is the point in which Pip first fully experiences of the concept and feeling of guilt and sin. Pip tells us that "conscience is a dreadful thing" and it is interesting to note that this insight happens to Pip on Christmas Eve.

We have the law represented by the sergeant and the soldiers who come to look for Magwitch appear at the forge door. If we consider the Holman Hunt painting of Christ knocking at the door titled "The Light of the World" which signifies the fact that Christian values are failing, we have yet another "reversal" moral trope in these early chapters. This painting was initially worked on between 1851-53. (I tried to put a link here but am hopeless when it come to computers. The painting was not fully completed for many years and Hunt had to explain its symbolism since many did not understand its symbols. A truly fascinating picture. Sorry for my ineptitude). Just consider how many times in the novel we see a person carrying a candle for light. The companion piece to this painting and one that Hunt wanted displayed side-by-side is titled "The Awakening Conscience." Then, at the end of Chapter V, Magwitch and Compeyson are loaded on the prison hulk which Dickens describes as "a wicked Noah's ark."

This thread of analysis can be followed through the novel. Perhaps at the end there will be an opportunity to discuss the interesting speculation Everyman has opened up for us.

Peter wrote: "Everyman's insights are very important and open up the doors for much else that can be symbolic."

Talk about taking and idea and running with it! But all very fascinating, and the graveyard and food issues, in particular, seem to me very likely. It was an era bathed in Christian symbolism, with almost every English reader fully conversant with the Bible so that these connections would have been much more obvious to them than to many modern readers.

Excellently done, Peter.

Everyman wrote: "I do like your speculation, but I think perhaps it fits Magwitch better than Pip. "

It's amazing how it all falls into place - all the details listed by you really fit into one picture.

Peter,

don't talk about ineptitude! Your last post just opened up a new dimension of reading the novel for me!

"The Light of the World (1851–1853) is an allegorical painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) representing the figure of Jesus preparing to knock on an overgrown and long-unopened door, illustrating Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me". According to Hunt: "I painted the picture with what I thought, unworthy though I was, to be by Divine command, and not simply as a good Subject."The door in the painting has no handle, and can therefore be opened only from the inside, representing "the obstinately shut mind". Hunt, 50 years after painting it, felt he had to explain the symbolism.

"The Awakening Conscience (1853) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which depicts a young woman rising from her position in the lap of a man and gazing transfixed out of the window of a room.

Initially, the painting appears to depict a momentary disagreement between husband and wife, but the title and a host of symbols within the painting make it clear that this is a mistress and her lover. The woman's clasped hands provide a focal point and the position of her left hand emphasizes the absence of a wedding ring. Around the room are dotted reminders of her "kept" status and her wasted life: the cat beneath the table toying with a bird; the clock concealed under glass; a tapestry which hangs unfinished on the piano; the threads which lie unravelled on the floor; the print of Frank Stone's Cross Purposes on the wall; Edward Lear's musical arrangement of Tennyson's poem "Tears, Idle Tears" which lies discarded on the floor, and the music on the piano, Thomas Moore's "Oft in the Stilly Night", the words of which speak of missed opportunities and sad memories of a happier past. The discarded glove and top hat thrown on the table top suggest a hurried assignation.

The room is too cluttered and gaudy to be in a Victorian family home; the bright colours, unscuffed carpet, and pristine, highly polished furniture speak of a room recently furnished for a mistress. Art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn notes that although the interior is now viewed as "Victorian" it still exudes the "'nouveau-riche' vulgarity" that would have made the setting distasteful to contemporary viewers. The painting's frame is decorated with further symbols: bells (for warning), marigolds (for sorrow), and a star above the girl's head (a sign of spiritual revelation). It also bears a verse from the Book of Proverbs (25:20): "As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart".

The mirror on the rear wall provides a tantalizing glimpse out of the scene. The window — opening out onto a spring garden, in direct contrast to the images of entrapment within the room — is flooded with sunlight. The woman's face does not display a look of shock that she has been surprised with her lover; whatever attracts her is outside of both the room and her relationship. The Athenæum commented in 1854:


The author of "The Bridge of Sighs" could not have conceived a more painful-looking face. The details of the picture, the reflection of the spring trees in the mirror, the piano, the bronze under the lamp, are wonderfully true, but the dull indigoes and reds of the picture make it melancholy and appropriate, and not pleasing in tone. The sentiment is of the Ernest Maltravers School: to those who have an affinity for it, painful; to those who have not, repulsive.

In some ways this painting is a companion to Hunt's Christian painting The Light of the World, a picture of Christ holding a lantern as he knocks on an overgrown handleless door which Hunt said represented "the obstinately shut mind".The young woman here could be responding to that image, her conscience pricked by something outside of herself.


Sorry this took me so long Peter, we were camping all weekend in the rain and just got home a few hours ago. It rained every minute until it was time to leave, the sun has been shining ever since. I read a lot which is what I do rain or shine.

Kim wrote: ""The Light of the World (1851–1853) is an allegorical painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) representing the figure of Jesus preparing to knock on an overgro..."

Thank you Kim. I find much in this painting that can be linked to Great Expectations.

And by the way ... if you were in my class you would be happy. Lots of Dickens and never any math. You would be in charge of all the visual material. I never learned how to use PowerPoint and all that other techie stuff. I did have lots of slides made by our tech department early in my career. Much to the delight and fascination of my classes I would bring in a carousel projector with the slides and use them in class. Near the end of my career I was frequently told by my students that they had never seen a Kodak slide or a projector before. That was yet another hint that it was time to retire.

I don't know Peter, most of my problems weren't with the teachers, although they did try to keep teaching me things I either had no idea what they were talking about (math) or didn't care anything about and didn't think I'd never use again (the different types of dirt, the clouds names, things like that). I was right too about not using again. My real trouble was with the other students. They can be mean to a person inclined to have seizures or get dizzy from medication and fall off my seat. At least I learned to never do such a thing. Then again, I'm pretty sure I knew that in the first place.

Yes, pupils can be very cruel to anyone who is, in a way, different from the majority, even at a very early age. My son is nine years old, and in his class, yesterday a girl gave a boy a punch on his mouth so that it actually started bleeding. The boy actually seemed very nice and polite to me whenever my son had invited him here, but yesterday it came out that the young fellow had been picking on the girl for weeks now, making fun of her because according to him she is fat and has crooked teeth. Other kids had joined him - fortunately, not my own tyke - and so yesterday, after many weeks, the girl just freaked out and gave the ringleader - and he seemed such a nice boy - a good hit on his gab. If she has crooked teeth (which is not the case), he now has loose ones ...

It's sad to know that kids are the same as they were when I was in school. Some of them anyway.

People will never change, Kim, at least not for the better.

I've known these two paintings all my life! Loved the Pre-Raphelites, especially as a teenager, and a reproduction of "The Light of the World" by William Holman Huntwas on the wall of my Sunday School Primary :) It is a very popular image for Christmas cards etc here.

I see the original painting "The Awakening Conscience" whenever I visit the Tate Gallery. Do you remember that we discussed the origin of this painting, which was triggered by his reading of David Copperfield?

In his book, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he said that he had been inspired by Peggotty's search for Emily. This gave him the idea, and he began to visit "different haunts of fallen girls" to get an idea of a suitable setting, not intending to illustrate any particular scene from David Copperfield, but trying to capture something more general: "the loving seeker of the fallen girl coming upon the object of his search".

Sorry though - I don't know the points of law at that time concerning whether Pip and his associates should have been arrested as accomplices - but I think by now you've pretty much covered it :)

Jean wrote: "I've known these two paintings all my life! Loved the Pre-Raphelites, especially as a teenager, and a reproduction of "The Light of the World" by William Holman Huntwas on the wall ..."

Oh, Jean

I have such fond memories of The Tate. Where does one go first? Where to hid so you can look at all the art after the crowds have left for the day? And the glorious William Blake's. Stunning.

Each time you go in the future spend another minute for me.

Peter wrote: "Where to hide so you can look at all the art after the crowds have left for the day?."

A dream of mine, to have a beautiful museum all to myself. Or perhaps a private tour with the curator. Bliss!

(Loved the children's book, "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg in which a sister and brother run away and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. What larks!)

I surely will Peter! It is my favourite Art Gallery; lovely to find that you have such find memories of it too!

And I shall now look for the book you mention, Mary Lou!