“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?”