Readers first become acquainted with Sarah Pocket in
Chapter 11, when Pip arrives at Miss Havisham's and is instructed by Estella to wait in
the corner of the room until he is called for. In the same room, Sarah Pocket, along
with three others, are also waiting for Miss Havisham. When Pip is called into the room
first, Sarah Pocket takes offense, saying, "well I am sure! What
next!"
When Sarah Pocket and the others are finally allowed
to see Miss Havisham, readers understand that they are relatives of hers who visit her
regularly with the hopes that Miss Havisham will include them in her will. In a
ridiculous scene, Miss Havisham asks Pip to parade her around her great table and shows
him where she will be laid when she is dead. Later, she dictates who will sit where at
the table (Sarah Pocket is assigned a spot) to "feast upon"
her.
Later in the novel, when Sarah Pocket realizes that
Pip is still part of Miss Havisham's life, she becomes even more resentful, as she
assumes that Pip will somehow compromise the amount of money she will receive from Miss
Havisham. In Chapter 29, Pip observes evidence of this during a dinner at Miss
Havisham's:
Throughout dinner, [Jaggers] took a dry delight
in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower by often referring in conversation with me
to my expectations."
Though
neither Pip nor Sarah Pocket knows who is funding Pip's education, both assume it is
Miss Havisham. Obviously, Pip understands the source of Sarah Pocket's hatred of
him:
I think
Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her in the danger of being
goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her
cap.
Obviously, Sarah Pocket
serves as Dickens's reminder to readers that relationships built around money--or the
hopes of receiving it--are most often shallow, meaningless ones.
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