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Pip miserable as we are told three times in the above passage which
proves that Charles Dickens wished to draw attention to Pip'a feelings
by using this stylistic device.
Pompous Mr. Wopsle, flaunting Mr. Wopsle, flashy Mr. Wopsle - Pip seems
to dislike him the more the evening progresses, which is why he goes
to bed in the mood described - miserable all over. It is with these
feelings that the reader enters the next chapter - miserable thoughts
of Estella, of expectations .that are all cancelled, of marriage to
37
the wrong woman, however right she may be for Herbert, - the chapter
in which Pip gets a note from Estella arranging to meet her at the
coach office, a meeting that raises Pip's hopes high again when previous
they have been so low. This is a fine example of a dream to round off
a chapter, a dream as the result of the proceedings in the chapter,
a dream that sums up the mood that Pip has in consequence of that
evening's entertainment.
At the same time it is a dream that provides a link with the next
chapter where Pip is in higher spirits. The symbols of this dream are
very important, not only in their own right but also because they
determine the feelings in which the reader undergoes this passage
the feelings of misery, the feelings of being misplaced - which
ho what has been said before. The dreams cleerly seem to be intended
to guide the reader's emotions.
On a psychological level it is interesting to notice that Pip has a
dream that breathes misery all over immediately after meeting with Mr
Wopsle - the pompous, flaunting, weighty man. It is suggested in modern
psychology that if we dislike a person it is our own bad characteristics
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we recognize and deplore in him. Charles Dickens may intuitively
have felt this and put it in the book to show the reader that Pip is
about to arrive at a turning point in his haughty behaviour and his own
pomposity. The dream then is entirely in keeping with it.
An instance when dreams are made light of and yet not made light of
- "fearful dreams" - comes at the end of Chapter 40 when Magwitch,
now called Provis has just come to London where he proudly visits Pip,
his protégé, the apple of his eye and is a constant nightmare to him
"Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out, except when I
took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one evening when
