Great Expectations Ch. 4: Christmas Dinner and

Charles Dickens

Christmas Dinner and Close Calls

0:00

0:00 / 0:00

0:00

Summary

Christmas morning arrives with Pip expecting every knock on the door to be the police coming to arrest him for stealing from his own family. The holiday dinner becomes an extended torture session as every adult at the table seems determined to lecture Pip about the wickedness of youth, particularly Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Wopsle, who compete to deliver the most pompous moral pronouncements. Mrs. Joe serves her elaborate meal with her usual combination of resentment and pride, while Pip sits in an agony of guilt and fear, certain his theft will be discovered at any moment.

The comic horror of the situation, a child who stole to save a man's life being lectured about morality by self-satisfied adults, reveals Dickens's critique of Victorian moral hypocrisy. When Mrs. Joe goes to fetch the pork pie, the very item Pip stole, his terror reaches its peak. He's saved only by the dramatic arrival of soldiers at the door, though his relief is short-lived when he realises they're searching for the escaped convicts.

The soldiers need Joe's expertise as a blacksmith to repair their handcuffs, turning the blacksmith's home into an unlikely staging ground for the manhunt that will determine the convict's fate and indirectly shape Pip's future.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Recognising Guilt Magnification

Fear and social pressure can force good people into choices they would never make in daylight. Recognising Guilt Magnification starts with noticing that trap before you are inside it.

This week, notice when you're carrying guilt about something - watch how it makes you interpret other people's words and actions more negatively than they likely intended.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Mr Pumblechook

Mr Pumblechook does not need Pip's secret. He needs a boy at the Christmas table so a sermon on youthful wickedness has somewhere to land, and the speech would fit any child in the parish. His pleasure is older than the theft: a small audience, and a moral he is allowed to spend aloud.

Read the full psychological reading

Coming Up in Chapter 5

Those soldiers at the door aren't there for Pip - but their arrival will lead to an unexpected adventure that brings his secret guilt to a dramatic climax. The stolen pie mystery is about to take a very different turn..

PreviousPrevious Chapter NextNext Chapter

Original text

3,355 wordscomplete

Chapter 04

Christmas Dinner and Close Calls

I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,—an article into which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment. “And where the deuce ha’ you been?” was Mrs. Joe’s Christmas salutation, when…

Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.

Master this chapter. Complete your experience

Purchase the complete book to access all chapters and support classic literature

Buy atAmazon.com

Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

Also by Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

Also by Charles Dickens

Hard Times

Charles Dickens

Also by Charles Dickens

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

Explores society & class

Social Class & Status Identity & Self-Discovery Moral Dilemmas & Ethics

Lessons from Great Expectations

Theme-by-theme analyses that connect this book to modern life skills.

Deep diving the literary elements.

Christmas Dinner and Close Calls

Summary

Why This Matters