Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Table of Contents
Chapter 11 to Chapter 20
Chapter Eleven
Pip returns to Satis House. He notices another clocked stopped at twenty minutes to nine. Pip sees the miserable, decrepit garden for the first time. Miss Havisham shows off Pip to some of her relatives, who are visiting for her birthday. A burly, dark man who smells of soap studies Pip and yells at him to behave. The decay of Satis House is described further. As ordered by Miss Havisham, Pip and Estella play cards once more. They go out to the garden, where Pip fights a “pale” gentleman. Because he knocks the pale gentleman down, Estella permits Pip to kiss her cheek.
Chapter Twelve
Pip becomes paranoid that he will somehow have to pay for punching the pale gentleman. He worries that Miss Havisham will shoot him. However, when he returns to Miss Havisham’s, nothing is made of the incident. Over the next several months, Pip pushes Miss Havisham in her wheelchair and Miss Havisham asks him about his future. Pip tells Miss Havisham that he will probably become Joe’s apprentice. Pip believes that she may offer to help educate him or give him financial opportunities, but she does not. Instead, she encourages Estella to tease and torment Pip. He begins to feel ashamed of Joe. Eventually, Miss Havisham offers to help him with paperwork that would help him officially become an apprentice to Joe. With much embarrassment, Pip realizes that Miss Havisham had no intention of helping him transcend class boundaries.
Chapter Thirteen
Mrs. Gargery accompanies Joe and Pip to town. She waits at Uncle Pumblechook’s while Pip and Joe visit Satis House. As Joe speaks in front of Miss Havisham, it becomes clear that Joe is of a lower social class than Miss Havisham. Pip becomes especially embarrassed when he realizes that Estella is smirking at Joe’s speech. Miss Havisham gives Joe and Pip five-and-twenty guineas to ensure that Pip becomes Joe’s apprentice. Miss Havisham tells Pip that he is not to come back to Satis House.
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