How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. (16.8)
After Mrs. Joe is attacked, fancy London detectives come down to investigate—and get absolutely nowhere, because they come up with verdicts before investigating the crime more thoroughly, and they try to prove their verdicts. If this is the way the London legal system works, no wonder the city is overrun with criminals.
Quote #2
As I declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors' Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged: heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that "four on 'em" would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London: the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes, which had evidently not belonged to him originally, and which, I took it into my head, he had bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought myself well rid of him for a shilling. (20.19)
Pip's (and our) first introduction to London life appropriately (or inappropriately) involves a tour of the yard where criminals are publicly tortured or executed. Fun, fun, fun. But these aren't necessarily horrible, heinous, bloody crimes that would induce such public punishment (in our 21st century minds)—we hear about the "Debtors' Door" suggesting that people are often punished for issues of money and debt (not exactly the bloodiest crimes ever). There's close relationship between crime, money, and survival.
Quote #3
I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening I should have first encountered it; that, it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. (2.33.43)
Again and again, Pip aids in the breaking of laws. And not just in little ways like double parking or jays-walking, but in big ways like harboring an escaped and exiled convict. However, do we ever feel in our guts like Pip is doing something morally wrong when he takes in Magwitch or steals food for Magwitch? Do we ever say to ourselves, "Oh Pip, we really wouldn't do that. You should definitely kick Magwitch out into the stormy night"? Not really. If Magwitch is deemed by society to be representative of everything corrupt and rotten within it, then how do we feel about society? You think maybe society doesn't really know what's going on?
Quote #4
While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her. (33.46)
Estella is pretty, the jail is not. Estella wears perfume, the jail doesn't. Estella has nice clothes, the jail doesn't, etc., etc., etc. We get it. They're different. But when we think about it, Estella and the jail would probably hit it off pretty well on a blind date. Remember how Estella was always the gatekeeper when Pip was little? Remember how inaccessible and untouchable Estella is to Pip? Remember how Pip wants to become a gentleman and to be accepted by society in order to please Estella?
Quote #5
I cautioned him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his natural life; and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. (40.96)
Jaggers, who is a beacon of truth and lawfulness, lays out very clearly the reasons why Magwitch should not return to England. And the way he phrases it, we have to agree: Magwitch should definitely not ever return to England. The problem? The legal system is broken. Why should Magwitch have to obey a corrupt system?
Quote #6
"Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you got it. That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend." (42.1)
Magwitch is distinctly aware of the power of storytelling and the power of framing a story in a certain way. He can himself distill his life's story down to a very nice one-liner (compact and travel-sized too), "in jail and out of jail." He knows that the world loves these compact, travel-sized descriptions of people. But he also, without even seeming to mean it, helps us think that maybe not all criminals are born that way.
Quote #7
"I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he'd took the fire with him, and left me wery cold." (42.2)
Naughty Magwitch. How dare you steal turnips to survive as a homeless, orphaned little boy? Rules are rules, and a turnip is a turnip, and it's off to juvie for you. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as sealing your records in the nineteenth century—these early thefts are with him for good.
Quote #8
"'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on 'em—they had better a-measured my stomach—and others on 'em giv me tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't I?—Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low." (42.5)
The law enforcers see Magwitch as the root of all that is wrong in their society—but Magwitch sees society as the root of all that's wrong with him. With no other option, what was he supposed to do but steal turnips?
Quote #9
"When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had come for'ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing and get the profit. But, when the defence come on, then I see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, 'My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi'his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there's but one in it, which is the one, and, if there's two in it, which is much the worst one?" (42.32)
Wow, what a balanced, unbiased, and egalitarian legal system. It makes total sense: the criminal who is young, articulate, well dressed, who has pretty manners, and who knows how to shake a handkerchief is totally capable of reforming. But the grimy, poorly dressed, often convicted, perpetual rule breaker will never reform. We love when life is so black-and-white, and when the law sees it that way too.
Quote #10
I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments, no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us. (49.76)
Pip has told Miss Havisham that he's not mad at her, he's forgiven her, all's well in Denmark, etc., etc. But, uh, there seems to be a tinge of aggression when Pip puts Miss Havisham's fire out. The fact that Dickens invokes prisoner language and imagery here suggests to us that Pip may feel the desire to reprimand or punish Miss Havisham for the destruction she's inspired.