One of Dicken's motifs in Great
Expecations is the great folly of the burgeoning middle class of his era that
wishes to rise to what he considers a frivolous aristocracy. The character of
Pumblechook represents these ridiculous members of London's middle class, and provides
comic relief in the novel as Dickens satirizes him.
When
Pip arrives at his shop, for instance, he notices that Pumblechook "appears to conduct
his business" by watching the other shopkeepers who, in turn, watch each other except,
ironically, for the watch maker, who keeps his eyes on his work. Again, as the most
ungentlemanly Pumblechook stingily doles out little for Pip to eat, the
pompous man tries to impress Pip by asking questions about arithmetic. This is done
in his hopes that Miss Havisham ask Pip to do a problem, and Pip will know the response
and reply that Mr. Pumblechook has taught him.
As Pip eats
his meager meal of bread and watery milk, Pumblechook eats in a "gorging and
gormandising manner"--anything but gentlemanly or hospitable, as well. This action also
serves to underline the hypocrisy of the man to whom Pip refers in another chapter as
"the greatest of swindlers."
In further satire,
Pumblechook is extended no hospitality himself when he arrives with Pip at Satis
House when he attempts to go through the gate that Estella has opened for
Pip:
"Oh!"
she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?""If Miss
Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook,
discomfited."Ah!" said the girl. "But you see she don't
[sic]."She said it so finally, that Mr. Pumblechook could
not protest. But he eyed me severely--as if I had done anthing to him!--and departed
with the words reproachfully delivered. "Boy! Let your behavior here be a credit unto
them which brought you up by
hand!"
This chastisement of
Pip, of course, is another extension of Pumblechook's "hospitality." While he is
servile towards Miss Havisham in his aspirations of rising above his class, he is cold
and cruel to Pip and others beneath him.
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