NovelGuide: Great Expectations: Novel Summary: Volume 1, Chapter 10-Volume 1, Chapter 12

Volume 1, Chapter 10-Volume 1, Chapter 12

Volume 1, Chapter 10: Pip vows to himself that he will soak up everything he can from his friend Biddy who agrees to teach him. He wants to get a good education so he will be more than a commoner in order to impress Estella. When coming home from class on a Saturday night, Pip stops at the local bar to pick up Mr. Joe and take him home with him. Mr. Joe is sitting at a table with Mr. Wopsle and a strange man. The man asks them questions and Pip gets a very terrible feeling about him and is convinced that the man has connections to Pip's convict. His suspicions are true when the man pules out Mr. Joe's file that Pip gave to the convict over a year earlier and stirs his drink with it. Only Pip sees this. At the end of the conversation, the man gives Pip a paper with a coin in it and departs. When they arrive home, Pip unfolds the paper to find not only a shilling, but two one-pound notes as well. Mrs. Joe promptly puts it into safekeeping. Pip spends the night with trouble dreams of the mysterious man.

Volume 1, Chapter 11: Pip again visits Miss Havisham's house though this time when Estella meets him at the gate, she leads him into a different part of the house. Pip then meets Camilla, Mr. Camilla or Raymond, Miss Sarah Pocket, and a grave woman whose name is not given. Estella then takes him to see Miss Havisham though since he is not in the mood to play, she takes him across the hall to a large dinning room. She then has him lead her in circles around the room with her on his arm. While they are doing this, the group of people mentioned above comes in to talk to Miss Havisham. Camilla makes much mention of Matthew, a character that never comes and visits Miss Havisham. After lots of circles around the room, Miss Havisham tells them where they should stand around the table when she dies, and dismisses them. Miss Havisham then tells Pip that it is her birthday and that it would be nice to die on her birthday. She dismisses Pip into Estella's care and she feeds him. As he did the last time, he wanders around the garden and runs into a fair young man who wants to fight him. Pip half-heartedly agrees and before he knows it, he is punching the fair-headed boy. After many powerful blows, the boy finally gives up and thanks Pip for the fight. Puzzled, Pip wanders back to the gate where Estella was waiting for him and she offers him a kiss on her cheek. He kisses it, and goes home happy for the opportunity.

Volume 1, Chapter 12: Pip worried that there would be repercussions after his fight with the fair-headed boy but there were none, and he did not see the boy after that. He began wheeling Miss Havisham around in a wheel chair when he was there. He wheeled her around her room, across the landing, into the dinning room and back again. Miss Havisham liked this so much that she had him come over every other day. . Pip told her of his aspirations of intelligence hoping that she would offer to help him, but she did not. After eight or nine months of doing this along with playing cards with Estella, Miss Havisham noticed that Pip was getting tall. One day she invited Mr. Joe to come with him because she asserted that Pip needed to become Joe's apprentice at once.