Great Expectations
What do these chapters show about Pip’s snobbery?
chapter 27 or 28. short answer please
chapter 27 or 28. short answer please
In "Great Expectations" Pip receives a letter from Biddy that Joe is going to visit Pip in London. Pip reacts,
Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no, with considerable disturbance and some mortification. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.
While Pip is not so worried about Joe's meeting Herbert, he does not want Joe to meet his enemy Drummle who would use Joe's low stature against Pip. (Pip is here so concerned about his social status.) At this point, Dickens has his narrator Pip voice one of the many observations on human nature:
So throughout life, our worst weaknessess and meannness are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
When he hears Joe arriving, Pip speaks of hearing his clumsy manner of climbing stairs and the cluncking of his boots that are "always too large" for him. Uncomfortable in his new clothes and foreign situation, Joe also senses Pip's anxiety over his visit. He apologies to Pip as they part, telling the new gentleman that he will not visit London again, "I'm wrong out of the forge."
As Joe leaves, Pip realizes his snobbery and regrets that he has treated his once beloved friend in this manner:
As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the neighboring streets; but he was gone.