However, he obviously takes a strange liking to Pip, saying that he is ‘much of your [Pips] opinion’. However, this may be down to Pip being the first person to show Magwitch compassion in a long time. It may also be an omen of what is to come later in the story. Overall in the first three chapters, Magwitch is presented to us as a criminal. However, chapter 5 proceeds in confusing matters slightly. In this chapter we hear Magwitch talk cryptically of the other convict, who we learn later on is his former partner Compeyson, and how he was willing to be recaptured if it meant that Compeyson didn’t escape, so that Magwitch could not be made a tool of his again. This provides information that suggests he may not be a criminal of his own making after all. He also proceeds in confirming his liking of Pip by apologising to Joe for stealing the pie. He does this in such a polite manner, saying that he is ‘sorry to say, I [Magwitch] have eaten your pie’, that we cannot help wondering if there is more to this man than first meets the eye, and if he is not a miscreant after all. Therefore this suggests that actually, he may not be the criminal we took him for, so he may not necessarily deserve the label of criminal.
We hear no more of Magwitch until chapter 39, where we find Pip slightly disillusioned with his new life style. He has a ‘dull sense of being alone’, and the weather is fittingly ominous, leading Pip to believe himself to be in a ‘storm beaten light house’. When Magwitch first appears, Pip does not recognise him, and soon resents this stranger and the ‘bright and gratified recognition that shone in his face’, especially because it ‘seemed to imply he expected me [Pip] to respond’. This is further confirmed when Pip says that he ‘half expects him to be mad’. However recognition soon dawns on Pip, and he realises just whom his visitor is. We then learn that it is Magwitch who is Pips secret benefactor, and we are just as surprised as Pip. For most of the novel we are led to believe that it is Miss Havisham who is Pips anonymous patron. This is because one of the main pieces of evidence for Pip is the fact that Jaggers is the lawyer for both Miss Havisham and for his benefactor, because he has seen Jaggers in Miss Havisham’s house. Dickens must have had a reason for this revelation. Perhaps his presentation of Magwitch at the beginning of the novel is the incentive. He obviously wanted to shock the reader with an unexpected twist, and by disclosing the information that Pips benefactor is the one person the reader assumes it could never be, he achieves his purpose sensationally. This shows that Magwitch obviously has a more human side, to show such gratitude for an event that occurred so many years ago. This again demonstrates that Magwitch is not the criminal that we may have first thought he was, and perhaps the pressures of society played a part in his life.
Pip, however, is horrified, and his ‘blood ran cold within’ him. He still has all his old childhood prejudices against Magwitch, and a new kind of revulsion against the man seems to well up inside him. This shows how Pip still thinks of him as a criminal, yet we as readers begin to question his motivation for these feelings.
Magwitch then proceeds in telling us his life story. He is presented to us as a victim, but clearly as he is telling the story it is going to be biased towards himself.
We learn how he too is an orphan, and that he survived his childhood ‘thieving turnips’. He has been in and out of jail, and it seems that people were telling him from a very early age that that was all he was fit for. He made a living by ‘tramping, begging, thieving’. He was taught to read by a ‘deserting soldier’, and it soon becomes clear that he has spent most of his life in the company of some sinister people. We learn of his partnership with Compeyson, and how Compeyson used him, when Magwitch was already worn down and almost destroyed by poverty. Their joint criminal activities eventually land them both in court, but Magwitch is set up, with Compeyson getting a lighter sentence because he is perceived to be a gentleman. There is a great irony in the way he is first greeted by Compeyson, ‘To judge from appearances, you’re out of luck’, because it is ultimately his appearance that sees him treated more harshly by the court. Altogether in this chapter we see Magwitch in a new light, and even Pip feels ‘a great pity for him’. We begin to understand how society almost forced Magwitch to live the life he lived, which would suggest that he is a victim of society and of the judicial system. This shows us that he may have had no choice in his life, and so had to take up crime as his living because there was no other alternative, suggesting he is a victim of society.
In chapter 54, we see Pip try and help Magwitch escape the country and the death that awaits him if he is caught. However, the police catch them, but in another twist of events, Compeyson is on the boat that apprehends Magwitch. They fight, and fall overboard. Compeyson is killed but Magwitch survives, to face trial for coming back after being transported. This shows how Magwitch was willing to face being re-arrested if it meant that Compeyson didn’t escape justice again. This therefore shows how deep his hate for Compeyson is, because he is willing to go through the ordeal of being perceived as a criminal all over again, so that he can extract his revenge on Compeyson. This shows how Magwitch actually is a good person at heart, and is not a born criminal, but has merely grown into the criminal way of life, or may have been forced there by the Victorian society.
However, the fight with Compeyson has left Magwitch fighting for his life. Jaggers, who is representing Magwitch asks that the trial be postponed, obviously in the hope that Magwitch won’t survive, but it is refused. This shows that the justice system at this time was hugely unfair, because it seems as if they want to find him guilty and so be able to hang him, almost as if it was some form of entertainment. When he is read the death sentence, Magwitch is not alone. Instead he, along with ‘two-and-thirty men and women’, are ‘put before the Judge to receive the sentence together’, watched by what Pip describes as a ‘theatrical audience’. Magwitch is singled out by the judge, and many of his misdemeanours are told to the crowd. Even in death Compeyson is portrayed as the innocent party in their story. The fact that there are no individual trials show how unfairly criminals were treated, and this portrayal of the legal system helps depict a cruel and exploitative society. This provides more evidence that Magwitch is a victim of society.
Overall it could be argued that it is the treatment of Magwitch by the justice system that becomes his motive for wanting Pip to become a gentleman. It may have tinted his views so that he thinks that if you are a gentleman, you can escape and so therefore Pip will be in a sense safe from jail, and thus be saved the same suffering as Magwitch. This belief would probably have evolved after his trial with Compeyson, which taught him that the law could be manipulated by class. This shows that Magwitch did not have many criminal intentions, and that he was tricked by Compeyson. In a sense Dickens is trying to show us how real justice can be hard to find. It is because of his low status and poverty that Magwitch never really had a chance. This shows how the justice system has been manipulated by society.
Therefore, I think that Magwitch, while having acted like a criminal, is not to blame for his actions and it could be argued that he is even remorseful about them. This shows that he is not a criminal, but a victim of the society he lives in, because he was never given a chance to prove society wrong and make something of his life, he was just labelled and left in jail.
