Monday, November 25, 2013

GREAT EXPECTATIONS PASSAGE 1

This passage is seen in Chapter 5:

"My convict looked round him for the first time, and saw me . . . I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards as having been more attentive."

This passage occurs at the point where Pip journeys with the caravan of the Guard to capture and arrest the two convicts in the graveyard.  The relevance to the scene is found when Pip identifies Magwitch (the convict that he had previously helped) as "his."  This is the first noticeable time where the convict displays a different attitude that is not his normal brutish way.  He instead gives his "attention" to Pip, studying his face and making a different mark in the plot.

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