NovelGuide: Great Expectations: Novel Summary: Volume 1, Chapter 13-Volume 1, Chapter 15

Volume 1, Chapter 13-Volume 1, Chapter 15

Volume 1, Chapter 13: Joe and Pip arrive the next day at Miss Havisham's house. Joe and Miss Havisham meet though Joe will not talk directly to her, and directs all of his responses to her questions towards Pip. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty-five pounds for the compensation that Pip has earned with her. They say goodbye and Estella promptly escorts them out. They travel back to Uncle Pumblechook's house where he and Mrs. Joe are waiting. They tell her of the twenty-five pounds and she is astonished and pleased. Uncle Pumblechook suggest that they go and have Pip officially bound as Joe's apprentice. They go, and when the ceremony is finished, and all is official, they celebrate late into the night. When Pip goes to bed that night, he, for the first time, realizes that though he once liked it, he will never like being a blacksmith.

Volume 1, Chapter 14: Pip begins his apprenticeship and after some time realizes that he is ashamed of home. He would never consider breaking his indenture but often times imagined that Estella was looking in the window at him while he was covered in grime and laughing at him. Then he would go to dinner and feel more ashamed of home.

Volume 1, Chapter 15: Pip no longer attended school, and Biddy had taught him everything she knew, but he continued to find ways to learn. Every thing he learned he would impart on Joe when they would go out to the marshes together on Sunday afternoons. On one of these afternoons, Pip decides that he should pay Miss Havisham a visit the next day to show that he remembered her, and to give her thanks for all that she had done for him. Joe gives Pip the next day as a half-holiday so that he can do this. Joe's journeyman named Orlick heard this and started to complain that Pip got a half-holiday and he did not. Mrs. Joe finds out that Joe is giving half-holidays and throws a fit. Orlick then starts insulting her and ends up in a fistfight with Joe over it. Pip goes up the stairs to change his clothes, and when he comes back, Joe and Orlick have everything settled between them. When he arrives at Miss Havisham's, Miss Sarah Pocket admits him. He talks to Miss Havisham only for a few moments but she tells him that Estella went to train oversees to become a lady. She then asks him if he feels as if he has lost Estella with a weird glint in her eyes. Before he can answer she dismisses him though invites him to come visit every year on his birthday. As Pip was walking home, he ran into Mr. Wopsle who asked if he could accompany him. Pip agreed, happy for any company. As they are walking, they run into Orlick, who also decides to walk with them. They reach the village to find it in a commotion and to find out that something terrible has happened at Pip's house. When they arrive there, they find that Mrs. Joe has been struck severely in the back of the head with a sawed off leg iron.