“I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them”.
Still Pip is very nervous.
“………..and I made him some hot rum-and-water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so….”
Gradually Magwitch then discloses to Pip that he has been his benefactor all this time. Pip slowly becomes more and more shocked as he tells him because he has always thought that Miss Havisham has been his benefactor. He explains how serving time in Australia made him lots of money and because of what Pip did for him when he was a young boy in the graveyard Magwitch fulfilled Pip’s dream and turned him into a gentlemen. Magwitch says how he came to the country to see what he made of Pip and that if he were caught in the country he was liable to be hung in London.
Pip finds Magwitch absolutely repulsive but he gives him a bed and shelter for the night simply because he cannot turn him away because he would most likely be hung. He gives him Herbert’s bed seen as though Herbert is away.
Pip now sits down and thinks about what he has actually done. He realises that all the plans that Miss Havisham had for Estella were just little bits from his imagination. He then realises what he has actually done. He has left Joe for a convict. This is where Pip’s character first completely changes in the story. He feels himself worthless for what he has done and feels very down. This is the end of the second stage of Pips expectations.
"I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration: simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, never, undo what I had done." Chapter 39 Page 376
Chapter 56 is the next big change in the character of Pip. Through out the story Pip has always been very unsure of what he thinks about Magwitch as a person. It is not until chapter fifty six that he really begins to like him a lot. The chapters that are shortly before fifty six help to make Pip become more and more loyal towards Magwitch. Pip feels very left out when he finds out that Biddy and Joe are getting married. Immediately after Pip declared to Biddy that he would like to take her hand in marriage. He then later finds out that they have had a child together. This clearly annoys Pip very much but he does feel better when he is told that they named their child after him.
In chapters 54 and 55 Pip shows great loyalty towards Magwitch as well. After Magwitch has been sentenced to death for illegally returning back to England Pip feels that it would be a lot better for Magwitch to die peacefully from his injuries rather than being hung. Because of his generosity towards Magwitch it provides Pip with a much bigger chance of a possible career. However Pip would not have been entitled to any of Magwitch’s money after his death even if he desperately wanted it.
The way in which Magwitch dies in Chapter 56 is a testament to his own inner strength, the behavior of Pip immediately before the death of Magwitch is a sign of his newfound love for the convict. Though Wemmick’s comical wedding and Herbert’s joyous engagement lighten the mood of tragedy in these concluding chapters, it is the manner in which Magwitch dies in which is completely uncomplaining, believing death to be the reward of God’s forgiveness—that makes his life a victory.
Pip has now completely accepted Magwitch as his “second father.” As he says in Chapter 54: “For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted wounded shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had . . . felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously toward me with great constancy through a series of years.” Pip simply sees that Magwitch has been better to him than he himself has been to Joe. Pip has at last learned the novel’s greatest moral lesson. Loyalty, love, and human affection are more important than social class and are the only goals worth striving for. This is the last change within the character of Pip and it is a good one as he now feels completely different about Magwitch.
