44
dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite worn out
- for my night had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful
dreams - I was roused by the welcome footsteps on the staircase."
This chapter is to be found at the end of a chapter and the end of an
instalment as well. The "fearful dreams" mentioned here create the
mood in which the reader undergoes Provisarrival and stay but this time
they give more information than just that. They prove that Pip's
everyday life - constantly looking after Provis who has become Pip's
dangerous ward rather than benefactor, constantly being on his guard,
constantly waiting for Herbert to return - is getting too much for
him. On a psychological level it is natural that disturbing days should
find an outlet in ones dreams at night and on a structural level it
is natural as well for the writer to mention the fact that the main
character is occupied - day and night - with a matter so important in
his life. If previous dreams were called a turning point this one can
certainly claim to be one. After all its here and now that Pip can
fully overlook his past life and fallacies. He vinderstands how mistaken
he has been all the time and it is here too that he resolves to change
his way of life. It is also a turning point in that the dreams and the
dreamers change, Pip is part of Magwitch's daydream until he becomes
a nightmare to him and the theme of power versus innocence is reversed.
After this it is Pip who decides what happens. Pip who takes action and
Pip - who dreams
"With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams
concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the
fear which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a
returned transport. Waking, I never lost that fear (Chapter 41)."
If previously the dreams were taken as the warnings of a troubled
conscience or guilty feelings that were pushed away in the daytime only
to return at night, this time it seems that they are dreams concerning
things to come as obvious from another passage in the same chapter as well
when Pip talks to Herbert about what action to take now
"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since that fatal
night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so
distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken."
The keyword is "fear" and fear pervades these passages as it pervades
Pip's whole life. This time it is fear of being found out, not fear of
