Dinner with the Spider — Great Expectations

Becoming twenty-one marks Pip's official adulthood and brings changes to his financial arrangements. Mr. Jaggers summons him to the office to discuss his affairs now that he's of age. The lawyer reveals that Pip will now have a regular income, five hundred pounds a year, to spend as he wishes, though the capital remains controlled by the mysterious benefactor.

The amount should be generous, yet Pip has already accumulated debts that consume much of it. Jaggers observes Pip's situation with his characteristic cynical detachment, predicting accurately that being given more money will simply allow Pip to get into proportionally more debt. The lawyer's advice is brutally practical: he's seen this pattern countless times before with young men of expectations.

When Pip suggests helping Herbert financially, his friend is struggling more than Pip himself, Jaggers is neither approving nor disapproving, merely making clear that such generosity will be Pip's own decision and responsibility. The conversation establishes the pattern that will define Pip's young adulthood: enough money to live well but not enough to feel secure, enough freedom to make mistakes but not enough experience to avoid them.

The revelation that his allowance is now official and continuing confirms for Pip that his assumptions are correct, surely Miss Havisham wouldn't continue supporting him unless her plans included his eventual marriage to Estella. Each piece of evidence he receives, he interprets through his predetermined conclusion.