An arrogant but stunning young girl, Estella, who is about the same age as Pip, haughtily admits Pip into the house. The house is dark and eerie. Sunlight has not entered it for many years. Estella leads Pip through the dark passages of the house before instructing him to go into a particular room. She talks to Pip in a condescending manner and treats him like a child.
Pip enters the room, as instructed and encounters Ms. Havisham, who is dressed in her wedding clothes and is adorned with magnificent jewels. He is immediately overcome with fear on seeing her and compares his trepidation with prior frightening incidents he had experienced. The room seems to be ‘ stuck in time’. The clocks have all stopped working and remain at twenty to nine. Ms. Havisham’s clothes have faded and are yellow. Pip later notices that everything in the room is worn out. He compares Ms. Havisham to a corpse. Pip is terrified of Ms Havisham’s peculiar personality. He compares his fear when she touches his heart to that when he encountered the prisoner in the graveyard. Although Ms. Havisham is undoubtedly a queer person, Pip’s initial attitude towards her is not one of perplexity or surprise but that of fear. This is primarily because he has heard rumours about her eccentric idiosyncrasies, which cause him to dread her even before he has set eyes on her. When he realizes that she is indeed weird, Pip becomes terrified of her.
Ms. Havisham then tells Pip that she has ‘sick fancies’ and asks him to play.
Pip feels unequal to this task as his fear of Ms. Havisham and the gloomy atmosphere make him cringe at the very thought of playing. However he is worried that Ms. Havisham will complain to his sister and he will be upbraided. Thus Pip pleads with Ms. Havisham explaining the reasons why he cannot play.
He begs Ms. Havisham to empathize with him.
We can already see the reasons of Pip’s distress. He has entered an unfamiliar and frightening environment against his will. He is afraid of Ms Havisham and although he is awestruck by Estella’s beauty, he is to some extent afraid of her scorn and her arrogance.
Ms Havisham then asks Pip to call Estella, when he tells her he cannot play. Ms. Havisham instructs Estella to play cards with him. Estella is reluctant to do so, she thinks of Pip as beneath her and refers to him as a common labouring boy. Estella mocks Pip for referring to the ‘knaves’ as ‘jacks’. She also derides his coarse hands and thick boots. Pip respects Estella since he feels that she is a part of high society. Pip like most people is concerned with wealth and wants to become rich. Later in the story we can see his obsession with becoming a gentleman. However Pip feels that all members of the elite classes and the prosperous are meant to be idolized and their opinions or judgments valued. This causes him to agree with Estella. As Pip says- ‘I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious and I caught it.’ Here Pip is humiliated and mocked by Estella. She makes him feel that he is coarse, common and unfit to be in a noble house.
This further reduces Pip’s self-confidence.
Ms. Havisham then asks Pip for his opinion of Estella, to which he replies that she is proud, pretty and insulting. He tells Ms. Havisham that he would like to go home. Ms. Havisham consents and tells Pip that he can have something to eat.
She asks Pip when he will come again. He tells her that the present day is Wednesday. She interrupts him and tells him that she knows nothing of the days of the week and tells him to come again after six days. Here, too Ms. Havisham rebuffs Pip. She seems to suggest that knowledge of the days of a week is superfluous. Although her view is blatantly eccentric, Pip who regards the genteel as always right is more ashamed of himself and his ‘commoness’.
Estella the leads Pip down to the courtyard. She rudely tells Pip to wait in the courtyard while she gets something for him. Pip says- She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry- I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart- God knows what its name was- that tears started to my eyes.
After Estella leaves Pip breaks down and weeps. He does so because he has been scorned, embarrassed and derided by the genteel, people who he now thinks of as admirable. Pip’s self-confidence has been destroyed. He feels that he is common and trivial. Pip realizes that someone he has admired all his life, is actually not respect-worthy.
