Chapter 3 opnes with a technique common in Great Expectations as Dickens's use of mist and light imagery conveys one of the book;s major themes. Dickens describes Pip on his way to his morning rendezvous with the convict, consumed by guilt and hurrying through the mists, where “instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me." (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Penguin Edition, 48). His use of damp, mist, and light often provide an outer demonstration of Pip's inner fear and bewilderment. Pip's consciousness heightened by feelings of guilt, he perceives “damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass ..., hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade" and “wet [lying] clammy." (Dickens 48). Dickens often uses external light and vision to draw attention to Pip's internal mental state.
Thrown once again into an unknown and mysterious situation when brought to visit Miss Havisham for the first time, Pip's vision is again obscured. “The first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark," he perceives when entering the house. (Dickens 86). Upon entering Miss Havisham's room, “no glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it." (Dickens 87). During his visit, he slowly takes in these unfamiliar and bizarre surroundings, but throughout his entire period of Great Expectations, he remains in the dark, so to speak, about Miss Havisham and Estella's real roles in his life. Even when the mists lift, for example, when he embarks on his London adventure, “And the mists had all solemnly risen now," (Dickens 186), he gains insight but not always the will to use that insight.
This technique of obscuring Pip's vision contributes to a major theme in Great Expectations of powerlessness and oppression. One of Pip's most predominant, and at times frustrating, characteristics is his lack of will and opportunity to control his own destiny. Instead, from childhood onward, he travels through life buffeted by the forces and influences both direct and indirect around him. With the death of his parents and brothers, his abusive sister Mrs. Joe raises Pip “by hand." (Dickens 39). Summoned to go play at Miss Havisham's house, Pip learns about being common, and his fascination with Estella shapes his goal in life — to become a gentleman worthy of her. Provided by Magwitch with Great Expectations, Pip lives frivolously in London waiting for his destiny to find him. Confronted by the identity of his benefactor and the accompanying danger, Pip puts almost all decisions and his own life in Wemmick's hands. Throughout Pip's entire life, even when he meets Estella for the last time at Miss Havisham's old house, Pip's future depends entirely on other people.
The wooden finger on the post directing people to my village, for they never came here — a direction which they never accepted — was invisible to me ... [and seemed] to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the hulks." (Dickens 48). This description foreshadows Pip's reliance on the forces of fate to shape his life. Although other people can choose to not accept a direction on a road or in their lives, Pip does not have or does not exercise this choice. He seems forced to follow all wooden posts leading to his future.
The section in this passage describing the village as a place that people never came to points out an underlying influence of the amazing industrial growth during the early nineteenth century on Dickens's work. Under Queen Victoria's reign, Britain sped forward to become an urban-focused, industrial nation. At the same time that people from rural areas migrated into towns, the towns spread almost as quickly into the countryside. (Hilary and Mary Evans, The Victorians, 21). Although Dickens recognizes cities as rapidly growing in size and importance, the juxtaposition of cities and urban areas result in descriptions which seem tempered with wariness towards the city and humored tolerance towards the rural attitudes.
Last modified 1996