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Great Expectations
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GE, Chapter 57
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A very happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the group. Hope you're enjoying your day. It's hard to comment on this chapter without giving things away. But two thoughts -- first, as Kim says, of course it's Joe who came to care for Pip. I'm sure none of us are surprised by that turn of events. Second -- isn't 123+ pounds a huge amount? Shame on Pip for going into so much debt for jewelry, of all things! And how is it that Joe has that much in liquid funds at his disposal to pay off such a debt? Astounding.
Mod
Yes, it was a lot of money. Obviously Joe's forge has been doing well. That was probably the money he intended to retire on, to care for him in his old age, because there was no social security, no old age pension in those days, so people then had to put a bit by if they didn't want to go to the poorhouse. So it's likely that Pip by his irresponsibility has impoverished the one person in the world he owes the most gratitude to.
Mod
Lets look at some echoes and stylistic features. Pip's fever is severe and he apparently loses his grasp on full awareness. Symbolically, when he awakes, it could be suggested that this means he is entering a new awareness, a new state of being; he is awakening into a new phase of his life. We could link this with the suggestion earlier that when Pip falls into the water attempting to help Magwitch escape it is a form of baptism, the water symbolizing death, re-birth and regeneration. We could then see the end of his fever as a second focussed suggestion of a re-birth, a renewal.
Or, we could see Dickens signaling the nature of goodness in the form of Joe. In Chapter XIX, before Pip sets off to claim his great expectations, he says "I was for London and greatness." Pip falls asleep with visions of Estella and Miss Havisham dancing in his head. When Pip awakes, "I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me, smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile when I opened my eyes." In this chapter under discussion, Pip tells us "I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe was Joe." Joe's simple greeting is a "what larks" and Pip tells the reader he said "O God bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man."
So here we have Joe who has watched over Pip as he dreamed of Estella and Miss Havisham and now we have Joe again come to watch over Pip as he awakens a burnt, bruised and broken man. Pip has not found his anticipated great expectations; rather he has found what is necessary to become a gentle man. when Pip's composure returns he finally understands of Joe that "Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, just as simply right."
As Pip recovers Dickens is at his subtle best. Joe now calls Pip "sir." How powerful - and brilliant - a touch is that? And then Joe pays Pip's debt, and leaves for the forge without any maudlin parting. A stroke of Dickens great maturity as a writer here.
Is it just chance that Dickens tells us that after "three days of recovery" Pip "went down to the old place "to put his plans into execution." Three days. I think we could again focus on a religious interpretation of this chapter.
"Old place" indeed. Could it be that there are other changes as well?
Peter wrote: "Three days. I think we could again focus on a religious interpretation of this chapter.."Good catch, Peter -- I missed that one!
Thanks for the finger post, Peter! Both "routes" sound scenic.
Mod
"The Arrest"
Chapter 57
F. W. Pailthorpe
Text Illustrated:
"Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making; whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss Havisham was consuming within it,—these were things that I tried to settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on my bed. But the vapor of a limekiln would come between me and them, disordering them all, and it was through the vapor at last that I saw two men looking at me.
“What do you want?” I asked, starting; “I don’t know you.”
“Well, sir,” returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the shoulder, “this is a matter that you’ll soon arrange, I dare say, but you’re arrested.”
“What is the debt?”
“Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller’s account, I think.”
“What is to be done?”
“You had better come to my house,” said the man. “I keep a very nice house.”
I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there.
“You see my state,” said I. “I would come with you if I could; but indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die by the way.”
Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread, I don’t know what they did, except that they forbore to remove me."
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Joe now sat down to his great work
Chapter 57
John McLenan
1861
Dickens's Great Expectations,
Harper's Weekly
Text Illustrated:
“There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.
Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole he got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction."
Mod
Joe Indites a Note to Biddy
Harry Furniss
1910
Commentary:
"Pip lay in bed watching Joe set about his letter. At the writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, he sat down to his great work, tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or a sledge-hammer" [A much condensed form of the text in Chapter 57 in which Furniss has curiously shifted the narrative point-of-view from first to third person.]
Mod
Can I change my mind? In previous posts I have really enjoyed the work of Harry Furniss but recently my interest has fallen off greatly. His rendition of Pip and Joe misses the mark. Pip looks so pompous when the chapter suggests he is contrite. Joe looks foolish when he should be portrayed as noble. Yes, Joe is still uncomfortable with a pen as a tool, but still, I'm on an anti Furniss campaign at the moment.
I think the McLenan portrait of Joe captures the moment very well. His illustration has a suggestion that Joe is not comfortable writing and yet still maintains a dignity to Joe.
Peter wrote: "Kim. Thank you, as ever.Can I change my mind? In previous posts I have really enjoyed the work of Harry Furniss but recently my interest has fallen off greatly. His rendition of Pip and Joe misse..."
Yes, Peter - the last few illustrations we've seen from Furniss have been all wrong. It's gotten to the point where I can actually pick his work out because I dislike it so much.
Mod
I would also think that Pip's fever, his falling into troubled sleep and coming to by and by, is a great symbol of the inward change that is going to happen in him. It also offers us the opportunity to realize, by and by, like Pip himself the amount of Joe's self-denying generosity and loyalty towards his friend Pip.
Call me a grump, however, but most of what happens in this chapter does not really endear Pip to me, but achieves quite the contrary. First of all, we learn that Pip's debts have been paid by noble Joe and that, as Everyman says, he very probably endangered his own comfort and social security for his old age by plundering his nest egg in order to keep Pip out of the debtor's prison. And what is Pip's reaction? Is he preoccupied with working out a way of finding himself a job in order to restore the lost money to Joe? No, he isn't. He is just making plans of going to Biddy, whom he has so thoughtlessly treated before, telling her how wrong he was and asking her to marry him. Not only does this show a certain spirit of self-righteousness in his assumption that he has to do no more than to say how sorry he is now and how stupid he was in order for Biddy to accept being his wife. It also shows that Pip would be quite willing to have Biddy tie herself to a would-be gentleman, i.e. somebody without any practical knowledge, somebody whose life will be overshadowed by poverty and insecurity. I think that Biddy could do way better than that, and it's interesting that this idea never seems to occur to Pip.
Mod
However, if we pick up Peter's idea of Orlick as some kind of darker alter ego of Pip's, this makes sense in a way - because Orlick does exactly what Pip might have been longing to do for a long, long time: He humiliates Pumblechook and exposes him to public ridicule.
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And so much for being passionately in love with Estella. Is Biddy anything other than a rebound? Does he love her as a wife should be loved? I think not.
And what does he have to offer Biddy? No job, no prospects, no money, and a lifetime love for another woman he will never be able to forget. Some gift.
Even Peter will have a hard time claiming that this shows a new level of maturity on his part! [g]
Mod
And so much for being passionat..."
True. Very true. But maturity does not necessarily equate with perfection. Poor Pip. I impatiently wait for our discussion of the original ending.
Mod
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We're two chapters from the end, and it's not getting any easier to find something admirable in Pip.
Mod
I am finding very difficult to hold on to my emotions. This is such a roller-coaster of laughter and tears. The moral turning point in Pip is so very great, and so convincing; the simple, honest goodness of Joe, so steadfast and stalwart. The satisfaction of learning that Orlick has been arrested for burglary at Pumblechook's house, thereby cleverly dealing with both reprobates in one fell swoop, is such heart-warming fare. I wanted to burst into tears every time Joe spoke, and giggled at the wonderful description of him writing a letter:
"At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or sledgehammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin, and when he did begin, he made every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but on the whole he got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction."
Surely only Dickens could write this?! It is so very funny :D But because we well know this character and how he had lived his life - the sacrifices and sheer hard work of his daily grind - and how difficult it would be to accomplish this unfamiliar task, we know that this is an affectionate and respectful portrait.
Only when we know a person very well can we feel the right to poke fun at them, and this I feel is what Dickens is doing, and inviting us to do as well. We feel that Joe could even be in on the joke himself.
I feel that this reaches its zenith at the end of the chapter when he retires from the scene, judging it best to leave Pip on his own, having achieved his end AND having used his savings to pay off Pip's vanity-induced jewellery debts. The quotation:
"Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, just as simply right."
brought me right back to tears (of happiness) again!
I agree that Pip still has his selfish immature points. He is a bit of a fantasist, and has a rather good opinion of himself. But I think Dickens's portrait of him is spot on. What Pip is intending to do at the end of the chapter ie propose marriage to Biddy, is a nice touch. It shows that although Pip is trying to reform his ways, he still has some way to go. So I would argue that this is good subtle writing. It has veracity.
For all the humour of Joe's writing episode though, what actually made me burst out in a great guffaw (I was in the garden, so sorry neighbours!) was this description:"and they took his till, and they took his cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out"
I think it was the "flowering annuals" that finally did for me! LOL!
Mod
Indeed! (I'm still smiling ;) )
We are up to Chapter 57, and almost done with Pip. Pip is now alone. Herbert is gone, Wemmick is married, Magwitch is dead, Miss Haversham is dead, Estella married, and on and on. All gone and he is all alone. Is it during this time that he thinks back on all the things he had done in his life? Does he think of the different ways he had treated people? Pip is now so in debt that he has no chance of getting out of it anytime soon and indeed, two debt collectors soon arrive at his door for a bill of “Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six", owed to the jeweller, again I am wondering what he does with all the jewelry. But the men don't get their money for Pip is now sick, very sick.
"For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,—anywhere, according as I happened to sink down,—with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so."
And who comes to take care of him? Joe, of course it is. It is still the same kind man, the man who has always loved Pip no matter what happened.
"At last, one day, I took courage, and said, “Is it Joe?”
And the dear old home-voice answered, “Which it air, old chap.”
“O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!”
For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him.
“Which dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe, “you and me was ever friends. And when you’re well enough to go out for a ride—what larks!”
I was thinking as I read this that the people who would have nursed Pip; Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, were the ones he had treated the worst. I suppose Herbert would have also cared for him if he was still there. But for those Pip has always felt were his equals, not below him like Joe was, Miss Havisham and Estella wouldn't have shown up to nurse him if they could. He finds that Joe has been nursing him ever since he got sick, he had received a letter telling him of Pip's illness and with Biddy's encouragement came to care for him. From Joe we learn that Miss Haversham has died. I enjoy hearing Joe talk again:
“Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?”
“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she had settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him? ‘Because of Pip’s account of him, the said Matthew.’ I am told by Biddy, that air the writing,” said Joe, repeating the legal turn as if it did him infinite good, “‘account of him the said Matthew.’ And a cool four thousand, Pip!”
We also learn from Joe that Orlick is now in jail. He has been arrested for breaking into Pumblechook's home, taking the cash-box, drinking the wine, eating the food, things like that. Whether Orlick stays in jail until the end of the book or if he makes another appearance, I don't know. And why Orlick broke into Pumblechook's home I don't know. He must have known Pumblechook would recognize him from both of them being at Joe's home if not from other places in town. I don't know what town they live in, if we're supposed to I can't remember, but it seems small enough that everyone would know everyone else in the town. But still, Orlick is in jail.
The entire time of Pip's illness, Joe stays with him. Gradually Pip becomes stronger and healthier and tells us that as his condition improves Joe becomes a little less easy with him. He begins calling Pip "sir" again. That night Pip decides he will talk to Joe about this change in him in the morning. Although I am not exactly sure what this change is that he wants to talk to Joe about:
"It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to bed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,—to-morrow being Sunday,—and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts (that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too.'
He doesn't get a chance to tell Joe for when he gets up in the morning Joe and all his things are gone. He has left a note telling him that now that he is well again he would be better without him being there, and ending the note with "Ever the best of friends". Enclosed in this note is a receipt for the debt he had owed to the jeweler, it has been paid by Joe. He makes the decision to follow Joe to the forge, and once there tell him all the things he wanted to that morning.
He also decided he would go to Biddy, and show her how humbled and repentant he was, he would tell her how he had lost all he had once hoped for, and remind her of their old confidences. And he has decided to ask Biddy to marry him, which of course she will, she would have to be crazy to turn him down, right?
Now I am so anxious to know what Biddy thinks. At one time she seemed to love him, but has that loved lasted through all his great expectations? We will soon know for as Pip says:
"Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have left to tell."