great expectations: why did magwitch return?

[luhsun]

my thoughts, albeit uncharitable. I have always been dissatisfied over the explanation of magwitch's return to england.Pip had been extremely profligate and probably spent magwitch's fortune to near exhaustion. I think that is the only psychologically reasonable explanation for him to turn up in person, exposing himself to the danger of capture. Given magwitch suceess and street experience, and the fact he could employ jaggers, it was unlikely that he could be so careless, or had no advice to just go to isle of man or paris and summon pip there to see his gentleman. Wemmick did remark on pip's excessive expenses before that. Probably the crown didnt seize much - little would have been left, and jaggers in his usual lawyerly economy with the whole truth would probably chose not to enlighten pip- remember that g.e. was written in the first person from the viewpoint and knowledge of pip.
Am not able to get the details of the spinoff story of magwitch's path to riches in australia. Was that possibility alluded to?
Would be glad to hear your opinions.

[JBI]

For the sake of dramatic development in the narrative.

[luhsun]

Yup, probably reading too much into the possibilities. Most likely, dickens was rushing to complete each chapter for the newspaper publication, and that was a ham-handed dramatic setup.

[luhsun]

I do wish jaggers being the narcissitic marchiavellian (icon for good, within his worldview, of course) had a more satisfying part in the story. After all, he did contrive to save molly and give estella a better life, in his paternalistic way. Would it not be wonderful, if he did contrive to get magwitch back when magwitch was near bankruptcy, giving the reason that only seeing magwitch in person would shock pip back to his senses. He would then inform compeyson, let them fight each other, with magwitch sentenced to death and all his possessions confiscated-thus covering up the bankruptcy. I think that was the only way for pip to be awakened, from a spendthrift ambitious brat into a real gentleman.
Given his unexplained interest in the spider(drummond), it would also be possible that jaggers was actively searching for a way to save estella -he contrived to get estella married to drummond so that broken, estella would have a heart. In a way, jaggers the guardian helped his two wards.
Dear Admin of this forum,
I hope i am not going against the raison d'etre of this forum by veering into the what i feel is discussion about alternate endings/explanations. If so, i will cease. Otherwise, i do enjoy such mental gymnastics.

[JBI]

I do wish jaggers being the narcissitic marchiavellian (icon for good, within his worldview, of course) had a more satisfying part in the story. After all, he did contrive to save molly and give estella a better life, in his paternalistic way. Would it not be wonderful, if he did contrive to get magwitch back when magwitch was near bankruptcy, giving the reason that only seeing magwitch in person would shock pip back to his senses. He would then inform compeyson, let them fight each other, with magwitch sentenced to death and all his possessions confiscated-thus covering up the bankruptcy. I think that was the only way for pip to be awakened, from a spendthrift ambitious brat into a real gentleman.
Given his unexplained interest in the spider(drummond), it would also be possible that jaggers was actively searching for a way to save estella -he contrived to get estella married to drummond so that broken, estella would have a heart. In a way, jaggers the guardian helped his two wards.
Dear Admin of this forum,
I hope i am not going against the raison d'etre of this forum by veering into the what i feel is discussion about alternate endings/explanations. If so, i will cease. Otherwise, i do enjoy such mental gymnastics.

That reading is out of tune with the narrative. Jaggers tells Pip the first time he gives him money that he is going to overspend on it. He does not save anybody, but rather knows their faults, and like his calculating trade, merely acts on them. The man is commercial to the core.

The thing with Dickens is that the characters are more or less all flat. he is a cartoonist, not Henry James. People seem to misread or look for more depth when their isn't anything beyond the necessity of the plot.

Basically you are dealing with a basic moral story. Poor boy is good, money corrupts him as he fashions himself of a different class, then he realizes he is a fraud, and as filthy as the rest of the non-aristocratic class, then he realizes that it isn't the money, but how you treat people which creates the gentleman.

In that context, Magwith's return has two plot functions. One is to "reveal" Pip's fortune's origins - through crime and the colonial, not through the generosity of an old Gentry Woman who has a wife in mind for him - and also to strip Pip of such fortune, therefore forcing an inward examination of the character based on deeds rather than wealth. It's a pretty basic morality tale.

The functionality of the whole novel rests on the cartoon-like characters created, be they poor or rich - Miss Havisham is pretty much an icon of popular culture, despite the unreality of such a character, and the notion that the same rats can eat the same cake for years on end without stopping.

[mal4mac]

The thing with Dickens is that the characters are more or less all flat. he is a cartoonist.

If I take you to mean the usual dictionary definition, "lacking emotion; dull and lifeless.", then I disagree completely. I find the characters vibrating with emotion, exciting, and full of life. More than for any other novelist. But as I can't think you mean that, I'm guessing you mean that the characters are "all surface", and there may be something in that, at least for the minor characters. I'm re-reading "David Copperfield" at the moment and trying to see how Dickens can so quickly introduce so many marvellous characters in such a short space - Peggotty, Micawber, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Little Em'ly, Uriah Heap, and several others, they just keep on coming. He seems to do this by introducing only the most interesting aspect of these fascinating characters. Even if you don't get much, if any, "back story", they still spring to life. The lead character is considered at length and in full depth, which saves the novel from being a cartoon. The other characters are fascinating two dimensional surfaces for the three dimensional lead to bounce off. So cartoon like, in some aspects, yes, but only like the best cartoons, and with the lead character(s) adding depth.

[cacian]

I always find there is more somber then light in Dickens novel. there is doom and gloom and yet the characters are so groomed in their manifesto to plume. I guess dark is what dickens is about. His style reminds of that of a film noir genre.

[mal4mac]

Miss Havisham is pretty much an icon of popular culture, despite the unreality of such a character, and the notion that the same rats can eat the same cake for years on end without stopping.

Her influence extends beyond popular culture, for instance, "The Miss Havisham effect" has been coined by scientists to describe a person who suffers a painful longing for lost love. And what's wrong with unreality of a character? Think of all the mythical characters that are central to high and popular culture. That said, she fits into the realistic context of Dickens' novel. This ability to combine fairy tale with reality is part of his magic. Magic realism is an accepted part of modern high culture, and Dickens got there early (Christmas Carol!), so the eternal cakes could be put down to "magic realism", or perhaps Miss Havisham replaces them every few months.

[JBI]

If I take you to mean the usual dictionary definition, "lacking emotion; dull and lifeless.", then I disagree completely. I find the characters vibrating with emotion, exciting, and full of life. More than for any other novelist. But as I can't think you mean that, I'm guessing you mean that the characters are "all surface", and there may be something in that, at least for the minor characters. I'm re-reading "David Copperfield" at the moment and trying to see how Dickens can so quickly introduce so many marvellous characters in such a short space - Peggotty, Micawber, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Little Em'ly, Uriah Heap, and several others, they just keep on coming. He seems to do this by introducing only the most interesting aspect of these fascinating characters. Even if you don't get much, if any, "back story", they still spring to life. The lead character is considered at length and in full depth, which saves the novel from being a cartoon. The other characters are fascinating two dimensional surfaces for the three dimensional lead to bounce off. So cartoon like, in some aspects, yes, but only like the best cartoons, and with the lead character(s) adding depth.

What I meant was more along the lines of how they are like a satirist's caricatures more than they are round. They are deliberately one dimensional, and the strength of Dickens in many ways lies in his ability to reduce types of people to caricatured stereotypes. Take Jaggers as the money-loving lawyer, Joe as the country bumpkin lower class worker, Estella as the cold gentry woman, or her husband as the abusive cultureless aristocrats. Pip's friends are the same stereotypes. There is very little in terms of "depth" in the characterization of anybody in the novel. Even Pip's development is a bit of a stretch.

We can do the same thing with Hard Times, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, etc. it's a certain talent that I guess Dickens learned from his days in journalism. Take the doctor in the opening of David Copperfield as an example - the doctor is a minor character, but he has been reduced to such a comical stereotype as to give a clear idea of what we think of as the doctor in the times, with all his uneasiness, and lack of confidence.

Aristotle is the first person to catch on to this sort of trend, that the comic characters tend to work best when they are less than human, or reduced. Dickens in all his work, after all, is a comical author, in the British sense, and is not a tragic author in the sense of Hardy, nor a motherly author in the sense of George Eliot. Some try to read a great tragedy in some of his works, but even the bleakest all are written in a low-mimetic comedic tone. He is comical in the "comedy of manners" sense, if not in his resolution of conflict through happy endings (which he does do through many wayward means many times).

[JBI]

Her influence extends beyond popular culture, for instance, "The Miss Havisham effect" has been coined by scientists to describe a person who suffers a painful longing for lost love. And what's wrong with unreality of a character? Think of all the mythical characters that are central to high and popular culture. That said, she fits into the realistic context of Dickens' novel. This ability to combine fairy tale with reality is part of his magic. Magic realism is an accepted part of modern high culture, and Dickens got there early (Christmas Carol!), so the eternal cakes could be put down to "magic realism", or perhaps Miss Havisham replaces them every few months.
She is not real in the sense that her house is impossible. The description is very much fantastical and not realistic. It is not meant to be read as magical realism or fantasy, but rather as a comedic sketch which bends the rules of "true accounts" for the cartoonish account necessary to keep such a character in stasis.

[mal4mac]

I always find there is more somber then light in Dickens novel. there is doom and gloom and yet the characters are so groomed in their manifesto to plume. I guess dark is what dickens is about. His style reminds of film noir genre. his style qualifies to that of a film noir.

The atmosphere is often very sombre, but the characters shine out against the gloom. Look at David Copperfield, what a survivor! And Micawber & his wife always bounce back. His style must have influenced film noir, film in general for that matter. But his characters are not usually hard bitten, like those noir detectives. Also, his plots and characters are much more varied than you find in film noir.

"... many critics and filmmakers — including D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein — have suggested that his brilliant descriptive abilities and innovations in narrative in a sense "invented" the language of cinema." http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiffbelllightbox/2013/2440001974 (I see some Canadians like Dickens :))

[mal4mac]

Take the doctor in the opening of David Copperfield as an example - the doctor is a minor character, but he has been reduced to such a comical stereotype as to give a clear idea of what we think of as the doctor in the times, with all his uneasiness, and lack of confidence.

Was a doctor usually thought of as uneasy and lacking in confidence at that time? In Britain, at least, I don't think that was the case. Think of Laidlaw in George Eliot's Middlemarch; some faults certainly, but not lacking in confidence. The "film noir" detective is always hard bitten, but the doctor in Dickens isn't always uneasy & lacking in confidence. Think of Allan Woodcourt in Bleak House. In fact, I think Dickens tries to escape stereotypes, another factor that acts to make his work rich, varied, & interesting. He does (forgiveably :)) tend to represent church official as useless sponges, but even there he acts against stereotype in "Edwin Drood", introducing the rather dynamic Rev. Septimus Crisparkle. You start thinking "another useless vicar", but then realise he's not that, Dickens undermines the stereotype.

"To see truly the surface of things , to reconcile us at once to the commonplace and the odd - these are not minor gifts" Harold Bloom on Dickens, "the strongest English novelist".

"Dickens caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken... let us not lose the use of Dickens's with and insight, because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire." - John Ruskin.

[Greg Ory]

He returned because he loved Pip. It is an act of naivity that belongs to the complexity of his character. This return ist a surprising element for someone with his life experience, of course, but this element makes the novel more realistic. Other than a novella, the characters of a novel are not fix characters. The narration will develop them. Their behaviour cannot always be explained in a rational way, as in real life! Pip's patron is an emotional character. He loves Pip and wants to see him again, in London, as a gentleman (I am almost quoting him!). It is an act of love - and naivity.

Greg Ory
greg-ory.blogspot.co.uk

[luhsun]

I disagree that dickens was superficial or his characters cartoonish. Jaggers was not the archetypal oney grubbing lawyer. He cared for the fate of estella. Perhaps the guilt of losing magwitch case to compeyson's lawyer? He should be seen as a complex character- a lawyer first, but a good man working within the framework of the system - my comparison being the civilian supervisor in asimov's blind alley - the punctilious, seemingly pusillanimous working and succeeding within the system.
Of course you may accuse me of reading too much and extrapolating- but isnt that what novels are for?
I also disagree that magwitch loved pip - probably a psychological transferance issue - pip was the symbol of kindness he received, the reminder of his lost daughter and his pride to make and own his very own gentleman, a symbiolic revenge at the suave gentlemanly compeyson.

[luhsun]

Typing error - money grubbing lawyer

[luhsun]

A confession: near the ending, when pip was in conference with jaggers and wemmick, there was a mention of documents found on compeyson's mangled body. Documents showing a bank account in new south wales and properties of considerable value belonging to magwitch. But i am recalcitrant. That was before the days of instant internet banking account updates. Magwitch might have sold off everything and compeyson had on his body outdated documents. Or compeyson knew magwitch was bankrupt and not worth blackmailing, so he sought revenge by reporting to the police

[kev67]

I do wish jaggers being the narcissitic marchiavellian (icon for good, within his worldview, of course) had a more satisfying part in the story. After all, he did contrive to save molly and give estella a better life, in his paternalistic way. Would it not be wonderful, if he did contrive to get magwitch back when magwitch was near bankruptcy, giving the reason that only seeing magwitch in person would shock pip back to his senses. He would then inform compeyson, let them fight each other, with magwitch sentenced to death and all his possessions confiscated-thus covering up the bankruptcy. I think that was the only way for pip to be awakened, from a spendthrift ambitious brat into a real gentleman.
Given his unexplained interest in the spider(drummond), it would also be possible that jaggers was actively searching for a way to save estella -he contrived to get estella married to drummond so that broken, estella would have a heart. In a way, jaggers the guardian helped his two wards.
Dear Admin of this forum,
I hope i am not going against the raison d'etre of this forum by veering into the what i feel is discussion about alternate endings/explanations. If so, i will cease. Otherwise, i do enjoy such mental gymnastics.

Did Magwitch contrive to save Molly and give Estella a better life? Molly was a high profle client, who he saved from the gallows for murder. The case made his reputation as a young lawyer. I got the impression he kept Molly as housekeeper as a sort of trophy. He could have been kinder by letting her keep Estella rather than letting a crazy woman like Miss Haversham adopt her. Jaggers does seem to spot early that Drummond would be a good match for Estella, but that is because he knows what a monster Estella has become.

I doubt Magwitch was anywhere near broke, even despite Pip's spendthrift ways. Magwitch sent Pip (iirc) £250 a year except the year he turned 21, when he received £500. This was quite a lot of money for the time, but a credible amount for a successful sheep rancher to spare. £250 amounts to about £56,000 in today's money by my reckoning, which is certainly plenty for a young bachelor, but not premiership footballers' wages. Plus, he spends half of that buying a partnership for his friend, Herbert.

[luhsun]

molly as legal trophy: yes, psychologically fully plausible
But miss havisham at that time just wanted some little girl to love..only later on as estella bloomed into the beauty she was, did miss havisham turned vengeful. It was by then too late to return estella to molly.
Giving back estella to molly immediately after the case would just lead to molly disappearing with estella into the gutters.
Yes, thank you for the calculations,kev67. Do you have any figures what a piece of sheep land in new south wales is worth at that time? And i suppose pip's debt may not be too much, given that joe was able to afford paying off the creditors. Maybe pip was not that prodigal after all- a pop star can easily go through more than £56000 in a night at london nowadays