As I said before there are many contrasts and another of these contrasts is the fact that Magwitch knows he is the benefactor and Pip doesn’t. Pip treads on some dangerous ground by almost but not quite being disrespectful to the convict. Magwitch doesn’t come straight out with the truth but waits until the timings right. Perhaps he is curious to see how Pip has changed and now Pip has money, will he be as kind and generous as he was when he had very little money. As I said before Pip treads on some very dangerous ground. At one point in the dialogue Pip treats the convict very rudely, He pushes him away and then tells him to keep off him. This is not the kind of behaviour you treat a benefactor who has laden you with money. Although in all fairness the convict hasn’t revealed this to him yet. The convict plays with Pip: ‘ May I be so bold’ He said with a smile which was more like a frown and a frown that was more like a smile, ‘ as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on those lone shivering marshes.’ The convict here is obviously playing with him. He knows how well Pips done because of him and yet he still hasn’t admitted it was he.
When the convict finally reveals himself, he does it in what I think is a very clumsy way. ‘Could I make some guess, I wonder…at your income since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?’ Pip now freaks out which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the circumstances. All his aspirations for the future have now just vanished. He thought Miss Havisham was the benefactor; he would be her heir and then marry Estella. Now the convict has revealed himself to him, Pip realises that his dream will not happen and that more importantly he will not marry Estella after all. Miss Havisham is partly at fault for this because when ever Pip confronted her about it, she never denies it.
Pip is also scared. A convict has just revealed to him that he gave him money. Pip now thinks that this money is not legally his, after all the convict could have stole it off someone else. This is not the case but Pip still fears this. Pip, as well as fearing the convict hates him. ‘ Bringing the face that I remembered, and that I shuddered at, very near to mine’ Pip is scared by the convict and then the hate kicks in: ‘ The abhorrence in which I held the ma, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some ugly beast.’ Pip now hates this man. His life had been very good, now he has a convict who has revealed that he is his benefactor. The money that the convict has given to him is money, which has been earned from honest sheep farming and trading in Australia. Pip doesn’t care how the money has been made but he doesn’t like the idea that the money has come from the convict. This is another reason why this passage is effective; Dickens shows how someone can change from fearing someone to detesting them within in a matter of minutes. We all face this situation at some point in our lives and Dickens makes this passage effective and we can see this in the way Pip acts. It is effective because we can relate indirectly to the way he acts.
As I said before Pip is frightened when the convict reveals that he is Pips benefactor.
‘All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.
