Tuesday, December 24, 2013

In Chapters 10 and 16 of Great Expectations, what 2 items from Pip's past mysteriously reappear?

In Ch.10 it is the file and in
Ch.16 it is the leg-iron.


In
Ch.10 Pip and Joe go to the pub "the Jolly Bargemen." There they meet a stranger talking
to Mr.Wopsle who


readability="8">

was a secret-looking man whom [Pip] had never
seen before. His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if
he were taking aim at something with an invisible
gun.



The stranger ordered
three glasses of rum for himself and Joe and Wopsle. When the drinks arrived the
stranger in a pointed manner stirred his glass of rum and water not with a spoon but
with a file  to communicate to Pip that he was an acquaintance of Magwitch to whom he
had given the same file:


readability="13">

he stirred it and he tasted it: not with a spoon
that was brought to him, but with a
file.


He did this so that nobody
but I saw the file; and when he had done it he wiped the file and put it in a
breast-pocket. I knew it to be Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the
moment I saw the instrument. I sat gazing at him,
spell-bound.



The stranger
departs after having rewarded Pip with a shilling and two one pound
notes.


In Ch.16 Mrs.Joe Gargery has been found knocked
unconscious and the police have arrived at the crime scene to investigate . Joe and Pip
have just returned from the pub. Every one is clueless as to the identity of the
assailant. However, the instrument of the crime is lying close to Mrs.
Joe:



But,
there was one remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with
something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were dealt, something
heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face.
And on the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a
convict's leg-iron which had been filed
asunder.



Pip
recognizes immediately that it is the same leg-iron of Magwitch's. He is bewildered but
is certain that Magwitch would not have attacked his sister. He is convinced that it is
either Orlick or Compeyson the other convict:


readability="12">

I believed the iron to be my convict's iron --
the iron I had seen and heard him filing at, on the marshes -- but my mind did not
accuse him of having put it to its latest use. For, I believed one of two other persons
to have become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. Either
Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the
file.


No comments:

Post a Comment

In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?

The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax.  In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...