Monday, March 3, 2014

In Chaper 7 of Great Expectations, what news do Uncle Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe bring home to Pip?

Chapter Seven is of course the chapter where we see the
rather fateful association of Pip and Miss Havisham beginning, as Mrs. Joe and Uncle
Pumblechook return to Pip's house telling him the "good news" that Miss Havisham has
asked for a boy to go to her house and play. Miss Havisham had asked Uncle Pumblechook
if he knew of a suitable boy, and Uncle Pumblechook, always eager to please Mrs. Joe,
had suggested Pip. Note how Mrs. Joe breaks the news to her younger
brother:



"She
wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And he had better play
there," said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encouragement to be extremely light
and sportive, "or I'll work
him."



Thus it is that the
fates of Pip and Miss Havisham, and, of course, Estella, become intertwined, though of
course Mrs. Joe has only high hopes that this association might lead Miss Havisham to
bestow some of her riches upon Pip, and by extension, herself.

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