In Charles Dickens's Great
Expectations, Pip meets Herbert's fiancee, Clara in Chapter XLVI when he goes
to Mill Pond Bank to locate the boarding house where Provis is staying. There he is
greeted by Herbert and Clara, whose father lives upstairs because he rendered an invalid
with gout. Herbert tells Pip,
"I am afraid he's a sad old rascal....Don't you
smell rum? He's always at it....and you may suppose how mild it makes his
gout."
Clara's father has
gout, a painful form of arthritis, in several parts of his body. So, he "keeps his
provisions" upstairs with him; to relieve the tremendous pain, he drinks heavily.
Because of the pain, he is exceedingly cranky, as Pip remarks that he becomes aware of
an alarming growling overhead. Nevertheless, the sweet-tempered Clara waits upon him
solicitiously.
The example of Clara's attendance upon Mr.
Barley parallels the temperate nature of Joe as he has lived with his termagent, Mrs.
Joe. Both Clara and Joe illustrate the true meaning of love as does Wemmick who cares
lovingly for his father and in contrast to the distorted idea of Miss Havisham that love
is "blind devotion" to the injury of oneself.
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