Pip's return to Satis House in Chapter XI of
Great Expectations is again a dark journey through long, damp,
dismal passageways lit only by Estella's candle. He is led through a courtyard to a
gloomy room at the back of the house where he is made to wait by the window until he is
summoned. As he glances out the window, Pip looks upon a neglected garden. He then
notices that there are others in the room with him, but he cannot see anything in the
room but the fire shining in the window glass. Later he understands that the people
have come because they are relatives of Miss Havisham and this day is her birthday.
After walking her around and listening to the "toadies," Pip plays cards with a haughty
and silent Estella, who later lights the way for him through a passageway until she
insults him and slaps him. Later, Pip meets a dark, burly man who brusquely speaks to
him. Finally, Estella turns Pip out into the garden where he encounters the pale young
gentleman, whom he fights and injures. After this fight, Estella seems pleased and
allows Pip to kiss her. As he departs Satis House with its dark passageways and toady
guests and a dark, mysterious gentleman, Pip remarks,
What with the birthday visitors, and what with
the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home
the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against a black
night sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across the
road.
It is night as Pip
heads towards home, the warm light of Joe's furnace gleams on the marshes, welcoming
Pip, symbolizing the love that Pip experiences inside the forge with the warm-hearted
Joe. This image is in sharp contrast to the superciliousness of the Pockets who merely
visit Miss Havisham in the hope of receiving some inheritance when she dies. Joe's
beacon of love and light and warmth is in sharp contrast to the dark night which
suggests Satis House where only the poor light of Estella's candle pierces the
darkness. Satis House and its rotting garden is a place where no love abounds and Pip
is slapped and insulted and finally get to kiss a cheek much like that of a
statue.
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