Great Expectations
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations Chapter Thirty-Two Summary

  • Estella is coming to town! Yeehaw! Pip gets a note that has neither a greeting nor a signature. It just says, basically, "Pip, come pick me up day after tomorrow. Noonish." Pip knows that it is from his sweetheart, and he is really excited.
  • Oh no. There’s not enough time to order new clothes. Oh well. Pip can’t sleep and he can’t eat. He spends his time watching or being near the carriage house for fear that Estella arrives early.
  • On the day of her arrival, he shows up at the carriage house five hours early. Does this man have a day job, or what?
  • Fortunately, he runs into Wemmick who invites Pip to accompany him on a short visit to Newgate prison.
  • Pip accepts the invitation. He is five hours early after all.
  • When in the prison, Pip notices how Wemmick is like Elvis to the prison guards and to the prisoners themselves. They adore him, and they see him as their ticket to freedom and greatness. Wemmick’s manner of tending to the prisoners reminds Pip of a gardener tending to plants. The prison becomes a greenhouse.
  • Wemmick introduces Pip to a colonel who is a little loco. Wemmick tells the man that he doesn’t think his trial is going to turn out very well. The colonel thanks Wemmick and shakes his hand. Wemmick asks if the crazy man might be able to get him some pigeons, since he is a renowned pigeon-handler. The man agrees.
  • Wemmick is delighted. He will soon be a proud pigeon-owner.
  • The prison guards ask Wemmick lots of questions about Jaggers’ various cases, but Wemmick dusts them off like flies. He and Pip leave the prison, and Wemmick discusses how feared and magnanimous Jaggers is to the criminals of London and to London itself. The boys say goodbye to each other.
  • Pip feels weird. He thinks about Estella and about how she is the antithesis of Newgate prison. He wonders why criminals always find their way into his life, ever since he was a little boy. He wishes he had never gone to the prison, and feels like he smells like a prison. This makes him really upset as he wants to smell fresh as a daisy for a certain lady. He gets so preoccupied that time goes by really fast, and pretty soon, Estella is waving at him from the carriage window.

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