Stage Two Study Guide Questions
By: Deniz Alpdoğan
Question 1
In Stage Two of Great Expectations, the reader is introduced to a plethora of characters, like Drummle, Wemmick, Mr. Pocket, and Herbert. Bentley Drummle is a rude, obnoxious student who also attends tutoring with Pip. He feels superior to everyone. Estella and Drummle start dating in chapter 38, which infuriates Pip. Pip introduces Dummle as “idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious” (Dickens 202). Another character that is introduced is Wemmick, who is Pip’s friend and Jagger’s clerk. Wemmick is a peculiar fellow who acts different at work and home. At work, he is very professional and hard, but at home, Wemmick is joyful and lively. Wemmick was insensitive at work when he “shoved [a] gentlemen out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used” (Dickens 162). Matthew Pocket is also formally introduced in stage two of the book. He is Pip’s teacher. Mr. Pocket has a wife and several children who Pip are introduced to. Pip says, “Mr. Pockets should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read with him” (Dickens 189). Plus, Herbert Pocket, Mr. Pocket’s son, is also properly introduced in stage two. He is the man that Pip fought many years ago. Now thought, he is Pip’s best friend, and they live together. Their relationship immediately starts off great when Pip says, “[W]e both burst out laughing” (Dickens 174). These characters are vital to Pip’s journey in stage two of Great Expectations.
Question 2
A titanic mistake that Pip made in London is that he deserted Joe and his family. After gaining his great expectations, he does not accept his family and is embarrassed by them. Pip mistreats Joe when he says, “I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him” (Dickens 222). Even though he is treated unfairly, Joe continues to love Pip. When he learns that the convict was his benefactor and not Miss Havisham, he realizes that he “had deserted Joe” (Dickens 324). Pip is happy with his life in London. He lives lavishly and joyfully with his best friend, Herbert. Now, he is ignorant to his past life and tries to disconnect any ties to his family. London changes Pip and the way he acts towards others.
Question 3
It is true that Estella and Pip are not free to follow their own devices. Everything that Estella and Pip have is due to their benefactors. Their benefactors control their lives. For Estella, Miss Havisham manipulates her life like a puppet. When Estella arrives in London, she explains to Pip how she has to write letters back to Miss Havisham constantly. She says, “It’s is apart of Miss Havisham’s plans for me’” (Dickens 271). This displays how she does not get a choice on what to do with her life. In Pip’s situation, when he received great expectations, he was immediately sent to London to become a gentlemen. His benefactor, the convict, wanted him to become a gentlemen. The convict tells Pip, “I lived rough, so that you should live smooth” (Dickens 320). This presents how the convict made Pip a gentleman. Estella and Pip do not have the right to make their own decisions and follow their own devices.
Question 4
Estella has changed in stage two of Great Expectations. Her actions and feelings are very similar to before, and she still does not know how to love. Now though, she regrets not not knowing how to love. When Miss Havisham and Estella argue due to Estella separating her hand from Miss Havisham’s, Miss Havisham wants love from Estella for raising and nurturing her. Estella responds saying, “‘[Y]ou ask me to give you what you never gave me,’” (Dickens 305). Estella wishes that she could give love to Miss Havisham, but she was never taught how to love. Estella does not feel for Pip. The reader never learns who Estella is and never gets to know her. This is due to the fact that the story is being told in Pip’s perspective, and he never gets close to her. Estella even tells Pip that she has “‘no softness [in the heart], no-sympathy-sentiment-nonsense’” (Dickens 238). Estella like a soldier does what she is told and has no emotions. Estella is a major character in the book, that greatly affects Pip.
Question 5
In stage two of Great Expectations, Miss havisham’s relationship with Estella changes because Miss Havisham realizes that Estella does not love her. When Estella unhooks her arm from Miss Havisham’s arm when Estella was talking about the men she manipulated, Miss Havisham becomes enraged. Miss Havisham puts “her head in her hands, [and] sat making a low moaning” (Dickens 307). She wants love from Estella, but Estella responds, “I am what you have made me” (Dickens 305). This means that Miss Havisham grew up Estella without love. Estella never learned or got the experience of how to deal with affection and love. This moment causes Miss Havisham and Estella’s relationship to weaken and change.
Question 6
Pip’s benefactor is the convict, which Pip met when he was very young. Pip is shocked by this discovery and he “had to struggle for every breath [he] drew” (Dickens 320). He is angry at the convict. Before, he had no problem spending the money. Now, he is furious that he received the money from someone so despicable and horrid. Pip also gets very upset when he learns about his benefactor. He reflects on how he abandoned Joe, who has only been kind to him. Due to his false dreams, he deserted Joe. Plus, this destroys his hopes to marry Estella because he says, “Estella [is] not designed for me” (Dickens 324). Estella is not meant to marry Pip. Pip becomes aware of how these great expectations changed the way he treated others. He understands that he was very selfish.
Question 7
The first time Pip makes up his mind to do something for someone else is in chapter thirty-seven when Pip helps Herbert get into the merchant business. Pip wants to finance Herbert’s career without Herbert knowing that Pip is his benefactor. Pip asks Wemmick how he could “best try with [his] resources to help Herbert to some present income” (Dickens 297). This act of generosity reveals several things about Pip’s character. Pip believes in loyalty. This quality is shown when Pip says, “I feared I had but illrepaid them” (Dickens 296). Another quality shown is that he believes that others around him represent him as a person. Pip states, “I wish my own good fortune to reflect some rays upon him” (Dickens 296). This is the first time Pip does something for someone else, and this experience reveals qualities of Pip that the reader has never seen before.
Question 8
In Great Expectations., the description of the weather on the night Pip first meets his benefactor, the convict, is very similar to the weather the night Pip meets him again in London. Weather is a big symbol in Great Expectations. The sun does not come out a lot in the book because sun is correlated with happiness. Great Expectations is not a cheerful book; on the contrary, the book is quite depressing. Due to this sad idea in the book, the weather is usually rainy, dark, and stormy. The plot also coincides with the weather. When it is more rainy, dark, and stormy, there is big moments in Pip’s life. A major moment in the book is when Pip meets the convict. Pip describes the weather when he meets the convict when he says, “[T]he mist was heavier yet when I got upon the marshes” (Dickens 15). This is very similar to the weather when he meets the convict again in London. The night the convict came to tell Pip that he was his benefactor, there was “wretched weather” (Dickens 314). The weather was very “stormy and wet” (Dickens 314). These events both coincide with the weather because they occur when the weather is horrible. Dickens uses weather as a way of expressing his ideas to the reader. He connects the scenes together.
Question 9
There are many subplots in Great Expectations. One of the subplots is Pip and Pumblechook’s relationship. It first starts out in the dinner party where Mr. Pumblechook looks down at Pip and insults him. Mr. Pumblechook tells Pip to “‘be grateful, boy’” (Dickens 24).
He is very disrespectful towards Pip. When Pip receives his great expectations, Pumblechook treats him like a King. Now in stage two, Pumblechook takes all the credit for making Pip receive his great expectations. Another subplot in the novel is Wemmick’s houselife. Wemmick acts very differently at home and at work. At home, he comes to his fairy-land type house which he decorated himself with a moat and flowers. Wemmick is very proud and happy with his home and life. He takes care of his father, The Aged, and has a lovely girlfriend, Miss Wiggins. The Aged reads the newspaper on one night and Wemmick “was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance” (Dickens 298). Pip gets to enjoy dinner with Wemmick and his family, and he gets to see how joyful life can be. An additional subplot is Pip and Herbert’s relationship. It started when they were very young and they fought at Miss Havisham’s garden. Then, they meet again in London and they become best friends. Pip finances Herbert’s merchant business at the end of stage two in the book. Pip tells Wemmick that, “[M]y help must always be rendered without Herbert’s knowledge” (Dickens 297). Pip is gaining nothing from this arrangement; he just wants to help his best friend. The subplots in the Great Expectations are interesting and entertaining.
Question 10
Pip’s love for Estella is just like Miss Havisham’s love. Miss havisham describes her love as a “blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust… giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter – as I did!” (Dickens). Pip loves Estella just like Miss Havisham loved her spouse. This kind of relationship is where one is willing to love the other and the other is not willing to give back that love. Even though Estella warns Pip by saying “‘You must know, … I have no heart” (Dickens 238), Pip continues to love her. The more adequate person for Pip would have been Biddy, but Biddy is not rich or refined. Pip chooses Estella because she is pretty and cultured. Another type of relationship in the book is where both partners love each other dearly. An example of this relationship is Wemmick and Miss Skiffins. They both love each other dearly and live joyful lives even though they are not rich. Another example of this type of relationship is Herbert and Clara. Clara is “rather below my mother’s nonsensical family notions” (Dickens 252), but Herbert and Clara still love each other. Dickens is showing the message that you do not have to be wealthy to be happy. In the book, people that were poor were usually more jovial than people who were rich. Dickens is trying to portray the message that conscience and affection are more salient than wealth and social class.