Summary: Chapter 27
Joe comes to visit Pip in London. Because Pip worries
that Joe will disapprove of his opulent lifestyle and that Drummle
will look down on him because of Joe, Joe’s visit is strained and
awkward. He tries to tell Pip the news from home: Wopsle, for instance,
has become an actor. But Pip acts annoyed with him until Joe mentions that
Estella has returned to Satis House and that she wishes to see Pip.
Pip suddenly feels more kindly toward Joe, but the blacksmith leaves
before Pip can improve his behavior.
“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of
ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s
a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and
one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come. . . .”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Chapter 28
Hoping to see Estella and to apologize to Joe,
Pip travels home, forced to share a coach with a pair of convicts,
one of whom is the mysterious stranger who gave Pip money in the
pub. Though this man does not recognize Pip, Pip overhears him explaining that
the convict Pip helped that long-ago night in the marshes had asked
him to deliver the money to Pip. Pip is so terrified by his memory
of that night that he gets off the coach at its first stop within
the town limits. When he arrives at his hotel, he reads a notice
in a newspaper, from which he learns that Pumblechook is taking
credit for his rise in status.
Summary: Chapter 29
When he travels to Satis House the next day, Pip pictures
himself as a triumphant knight riding to rescue the Lady Estella
from an evil castle. He encounters Orlick, now Miss Havisham’s porter,
at the gate. When he sees Estella, he is stunned: she has become
a ravishing young woman. Despite his newfound fortune, Pip feels
horribly inadequate around her, as unworthy and clumsy as ever.
Miss Havisham goads him on, snapping at him to continue to love
Estella. Pip walks with Estella in the garden, but she treats him
with indifference, and he becomes upset. Pip realizes that she reminds
him of someone, but he can’t place the resemblance. Back inside,
he discovers Jaggers there and feels oppressed by the lawyer’s heavy
presence.
Summary: Chapter 30
The next day, Pip tells Jaggers about Orlick’s past, and
Jaggers fires the man from Miss Havisham’s employ. Pip is mocked
by the tailor’s apprentice as he walks down the street. He returns
in low spirits to London, where Herbert tries to cheer him up, though
he also tries to convince him that, even if Miss Havisham is his
secret benefactor, she does not intend for him to marry Estella.
Herbert confesses to Pip that he, too, is in love and, in fact,
has a fiancée named Clara, but he is too poor to marry her.
Summary: Chapter 31
Pip and Herbert go to the theater, where Wopsle plays
a ridiculous Hamlet. Pip takes the hapless actor out to dinner following
the play, but his mood remains sour.
Summary: Chapter 32
Pip receives a note from Estella, ordering him to meet
her at a London train station. He arrives very early and encounters
Wemmick, who takes him on a brief tour of the miserable grounds
of Newgate Prison. Pip feels uncomfortable in the dismal surroundings,
but Wemmick is oddly at home, even introducing Pip to a man who
has been sentenced to death by hanging.
