Great Expectations Mist Quotes

On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village – a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there – was invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 3. Pip goes into the marshes in the mist of Christmas morning to bring stolen food to the convict Magwitch. The ominous description of the weather foreshadows Pip’s troubles and the fears that lie ahead for him. This includes his encounter shortly after with the other convict Compeyson who swears at him and attempts to hit him. A simile compares the direction fingerpost to a specter directing Pip to the prison ships, known as Hulks. This highlights the depth of his guilt and worry over stealing food from his family for a convict.

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dykes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with Somebody’s else’s pork pie! Stop him!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 3. Pip’s conscience weighs heavy on him as he travels through the marsh mist to rendezvous with criminal Magwitch with stolen pork pie. With superb use of personification by Dickens, the boy imagines the dykes and banks are witnesses to what his childish mind believes to be a terrible crime.

He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping – even stopping his jaws – to listen.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 3. Magwitch makes for a rather unconventional dinner guest when he feasts on the food and brandy Pip brings to the hungry convict in the marshes. On a misty Christmas morning the desperate Magwitch ravenously wolfs down the bounty Pip has stolen from Joe’s larder.

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 3. One of the two escaped convicts Magwitch makes good use of the file Pip gave him to break free from the iron cuff around his ankle. A simile compares him to a madman as he saws frantically through the iron. The scene occurs on the marshes, a symbolic setting in the novel indicating uncertainty and concealment.

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 19. This is a description of Pip changing coaches on the journey to London where he looks forward to his great expectations of a new life. But we can read this also as a metaphor for Pip’s journey up the social class ladder as he outgrows rural village life and sets off to be a gentleman. The ubiquitous mist that covers his home area symbolizes his uncertainty about the future and his place in the world. As he travels further on from his home village the mist lifts, marking the ending of one chapter of Pip’s life and the beginning of another of fresh possibilities and potential.

Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is, – they were quite right too.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 35. Hurt by Biddy’s disbelief in Pip’s promise to return often to look after Joe, Pip appears to look to the mists for clarity. As the mists rise, he takes that as a symbol that Biddy is indeed correct. Foreshadowed is Pip’s disappearance from the lives of Joe and Biddy following Mrs. Joe’s funeral. The theme of loyalty is also found here, as Pip’s loyalty to the people who love him most in the world comes into question.

“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.

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 59. When Pip revisits the site of Satis House in the misty dusk after spending 11 years abroad, only the garden wall is still standing. The house and brewery are gone. He is surprised to find Estella walking the grounds. The mist and moonlight imagery are symbolic of both uncertainty and clarity, perhaps suggesting hope for the future after the uncertainties of the past.

The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 59. This describes a poignant and emotional moment when Pip and Estella meet in the grounds of the ruined Satis House at the end of the novel. A softer, more emotional and tearful Estella is seen here, as she abandons her earlier coldness and lack of emotion. A sense of hope is presented in the imagery of the moonlight touching her tears and the silver mist, an example of personification.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 59. In the last lines of the novel Pip takes Estella’s hand as they walk together from the grounds of Miss Havisham’s ruined mansion Satis House. The rising mists seem to signify a brighter path and future. To some readers, this may suggest that the pair finally found happiness in marriage after their years of separation. But nothing is so clear cut. There were in fact two endings to Great Expectations. In the first Dickens has Estella quietly remarrying a country doctor after the death of cruel husband Bentley Drummle and having a chance encounter with Pip in a London street. Dickens later revised this on advise that it was too downbeat. The revised edition has an ambiguous ending with Pip meeting the widowed Estella in the grounds of the ruined Satis House and they leaving together hand in hand. Pip’s remark about seeing “no shadow of another parting from her” implies that he thinks they have a future together. But this is open to interpretation, since Estella has just told him that they “will continue friends apart.” The reader is entitled to believe that this is more of Pip’s wishful thinking and another of his “great expectations.”
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