For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 39. In this pivotal chapter Pip learns the true identity of his secret benefactor. It is Magwitch, the convict he helped years ago as a boy. Pip is completely stunned by the revelation, cannot think straight and Dickens uses the dramatic metaphor of a shipwrecked sailor to describe the devastating impact the shock news has on Pip.