Great Expectations Generosity Quotes

He was awfully cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 3. The child Pip shows a very caring, sympathetic and generous side to his character in the way he helps the desperate Magwitch. On Christmas morning he brings the cold and starving convict a bundle of much welcomed food and file to free himself from his leg iron. Rather than think about himself, Pip thinks about the needs of another. Later in the story he will generously help Herbert financially to set himself up in a career.

“When I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for him at the forge!'”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 7. Rather than leave Pip to survive on his own as an orphan, the kind-hearted Joe generously takes him into his home. There is a biblical allusion here, as Joe’s words echo Luke 2:7 – “There was no room for them in the inn.” While Mary and Joseph were turned away when they sought for shelter before the birth of Jesus, Joe doesn’t turn the orphan Pip away but welcomes him into his life. He becomes a true father figure to the boy.

As I passed the church, I felt…a sublime compassion for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of condescension upon everybody in the village.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 19. The metaphor of “a gallon of condescension” sums up perfectly Pip’s new feelings of superiority after learning that he has come into a large fortune. The superficiality of the upper classes is mocked by Dickens, when Pip describes his fellow villagers as “poor creatures” and says how he will be “bestowing a dinner” on them. It doesn’t take long for money to turn Pip into a snob and have him use the language of the condescending. That said, it does show Pip still retains a generous side to his nature by wanting to share his largesse with those he grew up with. A tone of irony is created by having Pip express these pompous and patronizing thoughts while passing the church.

Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker’s House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 37. Pip comes up with a secret plan to help his friend Herbert get a job with a young shipping broker. He invests a sizeable sum of money from his own fortune in the firm, so that it hires Herbert as a clerk to eventually become partner. The deal is done anonymously through Wemmick and Miss Skiffins’s brother, so that Herbert is unaware of Pip’s role in his career advancement. With all the negative and corrupting influences Pip’s wealth has had on him, this single act of goodness and generosity stands out. It is a pivotal moment that marks a turning point for both Pip and Herbert.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. There is heavy irony in the fact that the person responsible for transforming Pip into a gentleman is the lowly convict Magwitch. Here Magwitch tells how every guinea he earned from sheep farming and stock breeding in Australia he kept for Pip. Magwitch’s generosity and loyalty in wanting to repay the little boy who helped him when he was on the run from the law many years before are shown here.

“Look’ee here, Pip. I’m your second father. You’re my son, – more to me nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot men’s and women’s faces wos like, I see yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my dinner or my supper, and I says, ‘Here’s the boy again, a looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!’ I see you there a many times, as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. ‘Lord strike me dead!’ I says each time, – and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens, – ‘but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I’ll make that boy a gentleman!’ And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings o’yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat ’em!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. Magwitch dramatically declares to Pip that he is his secret patron and source of his entire fortune. Although a hardened criminal, Magwitch shows that he has a noble side to his character, as we see in his powerful loyalty and generosity to Pip. He has never forgotten the kindness Pip showed to him as a little boy on the misty marches. It is clear too that he feels a fatherly affection for Pip. In this touching scene, he tenderly refers to him as his son. Clearly proud of turning the boy who helped him into a gentleman, there is much irony in the fact that this was done by a low-class criminal.

“It was a recompense to me, look’ee here, to know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says to myself, ‘I’m making a better gentleman nor ever you’ll be!’ When one of ’em says to another, ‘He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a ignorant common fellow now, for all he’s lucky,’ what do I say? I says to myself, ‘If I ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no learning, I’m the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?'”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. One of the great examples of situational ironies in the novel is the true identity of Pip’s secret patron. When Pip first encounters Magwitch as a child he is a frightening and menacing criminal. But he later turns out to be the generous benefactor who devotes his riches from farming in Australia into making Pip a gentleman. Magwitch admits that he could never have aspired to be a gentleman, because he wasn’t educated. But he was able to create one in Pip, so he could say to those who looked down on him: “which of you owns a brought-up London gentleman?”

“Miss Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly love you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly, though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it better, for your sake!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 44. When Pip hears from Estella that she is engaged to Bentley Drummle, he passionately pleads with her not to marry him. While expressing his own deep love for her, he accepts that he will not be the one to marry her. He points out that there are other worthy men who truly care for her. In an act of selflessness and generosity, he begs her to marry one of them instead. This is an indicator that Pip is improving as a character and reforming his selfish ways. Miss Havisham’s own cruel actions as a parent in raising Estella to be heartless and unfeeling are criticized by Pip.

I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction – whether it was a false kind or a true, I hardly know – in not having profited by his generosity since his revelation of himself.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 47. This quote reflects Pip’s internal moral conflict about taking money from a convict, having learned that Magwitch is his benefactor. Planning to help Magwitch escape from England, Pip decides that he can no longer profit from Magwitch’s generosity. Once Magwitch is safely out of London and abroad, Pip will end their relationship. The theme of integrity is found here, as Pip prioritizes his principles over exploiting Magwitch’s kindness for personal gain.

“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?” “Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham attempts to redeem herself by her generous gesture to Pip and his friend Herbert Pocket. Showing how truly sorry she is for past behavior, she anonymously supplies Pip with 900 pounds to help Herbert establish his career. When she asks if there is nothing she can do for Pip himself, he declines.

For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 54. Pip’s attitudes towards Magwitch have gone through a significant transformation, reflecting Pip’s own personal growth and development. Initially disgusted that the convict was his benefactor, Pip now recognizes the generosity, affection and loyalty he has shown Pip through the years. The admission when Magwitch is arrested that he is a better man than Pip has been to Joe is significant. Pip is able to recognize his own failures and lack of kindness. We are looking at a more mature Pip than when, blinkered by an obsession with social class and superficiality, he felt superior to Magwitch and Joe. This passage follows Magwitch’s arrest when Pip’s escape plan to spirit Magwitch out of England is foiled by the law.

“Not wishful to intrude I have departed fur you are well again dear Pip and will do better without JO. P.S. Ever the best of friends.” Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money; but Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 57. After nursing Pip back to health when he fells ill in London, Joe quietly departs leaving him a short letter. Enclosed with it is a receipt for Pip’s debts which got him almost arrested and Joe paid off unknownst to him. This quote demonstrates how hugely loyal, loving and generous Joe is. It also show Joe’s determination to improve himself, having learned to read and write from Biddy.
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