Chapter Synopsis of Great Expectations - Study Guide by Charles Dickens

Jaggers that Orlick is unfit for Havisham’s employment, and he is thus dismissed. Jaggers gives Pip £500 from his benefactor (well-timed given his mounting debts) and he arranges secretly with Wemmick to give half of it to Herbert, to help him in business. He also visits Estella several times, remonstrating with her for encouraging the attentions of Bentley Drummle.

One night Pip has a visitor at his chambers; he is horrified to discover that it is the convict of his childhood, introducing himself as Abel Magwitch, alias Provis. He is further horrified to learn that Magwitch, and not Miss Havisham, is his benefactor, grateful for the help Pip gave him years earlier. He has grown rich as a sheep-farmer in Australia and devoted his wealth to Pip, who resolves to accept no more of it. He explains to Pip and Herbert that his presence in England is a capital offence, and they decide to hide him. He describes his history to them. He was involved in crime with a man named Compeyson (the second convict encountered by Pip in the graveyard) and Arthur Havisham, Miss Havisham’s half- brother. Magwitch explains that he received a 14-year sentence, as opposed to Compeyson’s 7 years, as he lacked the superficial gentility of the latter.

Pip visits Miss Havisham and explains the discovery, asking her to support Herbert. He declares his love to Estella, who tells him that she is to marry Bentley Drummle. Pip flees back to London, where he learns that Magwitch has been observed. Wemmick arranges for him to be moved to a safer location, the home of Herbert’s fiancée Clara Barley, and her father. A plot is hatched to convey Magwitch onto a foreign vessel by boat. Pip visits Miss Havisham, who is profoundly distressed at what she has done to Pip and Estella and undertakes to help Herbert. Her clothes catch fire, and despite Pip’s efforts to save her, she dies begging his forgiveness. As Pip recovers from his own burns in London, Herbert reveals that Estella is the daughter of Jaggers’s maid, a murderess whom he rescued from punishment, and that her father is Magwitch.

Pip is mysteriously asked to a night appointment in an old lime kiln on the Kent marshes. Orlick is there, misguidedly bent on killing him for being a rival for Biddy’s affections and engineering his dismissal from Satis House. He admits to the attack on Mrs. Joe, to having tracked down Magwitch in Pip’s chambers, and to being in league with Compeyson to prevent Magwitch’s escape. Pip is rescued in the nick of time by Herbert and others. The operation to spirit Magwitch away is foiled when the boat conveying Pip, Herbert and him towards the foreign steamer is stopped by a customs boat containing Compeyson. Magwitch attempts to board it and attack him, but the steamer runs them down and Compeyson is mashed to death. Magwitch survives with terrible injuries. Brought to trial and convicted, he is too ill for incarceration and is visited in a prison hospital by Pip, where a new closeness arises between them. Pip is grateful towards him, and ashamed of his earlier attitude. Magwitch dies shortly after Pip tells him that his daughter (whom he had thought dead) is alive.

Pip falls seriously ill and comes out of a fever to learn that Joe has been tending to him for weeks and has paid his debts. Again, Pip is ashamed at his conduct. His ‘expectations’ have done him little good and he is not sorry to be rid of them. When Joe leaves, Pip decides to visit Kent and propose to Biddy. He arrives to find that it is the wedding day of her and Joe. Selling up, he leaves England to join Herbert in his business in the East. Returning 11 years later, Pip pays a nostalgic visit to Satis House one evening, and finds it in ruins and Estella walking in its grounds. She is an unhappy widow, having married Drummle, and has at last learnt the importance of sympathy and tenderness. Asking Pip to be her friend and to leave her, he does; but as he departs the evening mist rises and he realises that he is not to be parted from her again.