Mr. Pumblechook Quotes

Uncle Pumblechook: a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and had that moment come to.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 4. In this colorful description, Dickens caricatures the officious and pompous corn merchant, Uncle Pumblechook. He mocks his most unattractive and unappealing appearance. A simile sarcastically compares his mouth to the wide and gaping mouth of a fish. Pumblechook is actually Joe’s uncle and so is technically Pip’s uncle-in-law. He is referred to as Uncle Pumblechook many times in the novel.

My sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, “Do you hear that? Be grateful.” “Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand.” Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally wicious.” Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 4. While growing up the boy Pip has to sit through the ordeal of a Christmas dinner that is far from full of cheer for him. After grace, he is admonished by his sister Mrs. Joe and her guest Mr. Pumblechook for his lack of gratitude to those providing for him. It goes downhill from there, with another guest Mr. Hubble decrying the young as “naterally wicious” and everyone agreeing with him. The irony is that if anyone is naturally vicious, it is Mrs. Joe, whom we know brings up Pip with the use of the heavy hand and Tickler, her punishment cane. Pip’s awkward and tense home life is on display here.

“Enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn’t. And what would have been your destination?” turning on me again. “You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have shed your blood and had your life.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 4. Christmas dinner conversation at the Gargerys is filled with examples of irony and satire, as illustrated by Mr. Pumblechook’s comments to Pip. As Pumblechook and the others tuck into their pork meal, Joe’s uncle tells the boy that he should be grateful he was not born a pig. He takes great pleasure in describing what the butcher would do if Pip were a pig and reminds him how lucky he is to be with them. The Christmas dinners of Pip’s childhood are far from joyous occasions, rather he is treated poorly by the condescending and insulting adults. Instead of showing Pip seasonal goodwill, Pumblechook chooses to intimidate and frighten him.

“And couldn’t she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? Isn’t it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes – we won’t say quarterly or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you – but sometimes – go there to pay his rent? And couldn’t she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there?”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 7. We hear from Mrs. Joe how Uncle Pumblechook manages to get Pip into Satis House. Pumblechook is a tenant of the rich landlady Miss Havisham who lives there. Pip’s visits there will be his first introduction to the upper class.

I was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 7. Master of satire Dickens is at his most savage and sharpest when portraying Pip’s pompous, self-important and blowhard uncle Mr. Pumblechook. Several similes attest to his inflated view of himself, when he is compared to a sheriff and treats Pip like a young penitent.

Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping his eye on the coach-maker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chemist.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 8. In young Pip’s observation of how Mr. Pumblechook works, he and the other business people are not, as they believe, conducting business or getting on in life. They are simply staring at one another, the opposite of what is expected from successful business men. Here Dickens brilliantly satirizes the nature of commercial life in a provincial town. He employs dramatic irony to humorous effect with absurd characters who think they are working when the reader knows they are just idling.

I considered Mr. Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister’s idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted to my diet, – besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out altogether, – his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 8. Pip expresses his dislike for Mr. Pumblechook when he goes to stay with him and Pumblechook does not treat him well. Pumblechook is miserly and feeds the boy crumbs and watered down milk. He is one of Dickens’s famous figures of satire. Even his absurd name suggests he is not to be taken seriously.

I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the breakfast. “Seven?” “And four?” “And eight?” “And six?” “And two?” “And ten?” And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 8. Breakfast at Uncle Pumblechook’s, where Pip is staying before his first visit to Satis House, is not quite what Pip expected. While his host eats a lavish breakfast, the boy is left to go hungry, with Pumblechook droning on about math and sums as Pip is left waiting for a morsel. Pumblechook’s insensitive nature is satirized here and we also see a good example of situational irony.

Then he asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he had ever been my favourite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 19. When Pip rises from relative poverty to riches, some people like Mr. Pumblechook begin to treat him differently. The insincere Pumblechook who abused and neglected Pip as a child now fawns over and flatters him. Rewriting history, he pretends to have been Pip’s friend and to have played an important role in securing his apprenticeship. While Pip sees through the pretense, he enjoys the flattery.

After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 35. Pip describes with humor, irony and satire the behavior and excessive drinking of mourners at the funeral of Mrs. Joe. In a simile, he compares Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble to two immortals from a different race to Mrs. Joe who act like they are immune to death.

The wonderful difference between the servile manner in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, “May I?” and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the same fat five fingers.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 58. When Pip returns to his home village after his fall from fortune he finds that his reputation among the villagers has suffered a reversal. People like Pumblechook no longer fawn over him like they did when Pip was a wealthy man. Instead Pumblechook puts on a show of pity and disdain when he offers Pip a handshake. By contrast back in Chapter 19 Pumblechook breathlessly ran after Pip to congratulate him and ask permission to repeatedly shake his hand: “‘May I?’ We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the road.”
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