Great Expectations · Chapter
The Flight Down the River explained
Pip accompanies the wounded Magwitch on a boat journey down the Thames, attempting to escape to a foreign ship.
What happens
Pip accompanies the wounded Magwitch on a boat journey down the Thames, attempting to escape to a foreign ship. Herbert and Startop row, and Wemmick joins them. Magwitch is calm and reflective, while Pip feels deep loyalty and pity for him, realizing his benefactor's fate is sealed. The chapter ends with them nearing their goal but aware of the danger.
Themes in this chapter
Guilt and Redemption
Pip's repugnance for Magwitch melts away, seeing him as a better man than himself, and he vows to be true to him.
Crime and Injustice
Magwitch's past as a transported convict and his current flight highlight the harshness of the legal system.
Identity and Self-Discovery
Pip re-evaluates his own character and his relationship with Joe, finding Magwitch's constancy admirable.
Characters to notice
- Pip
Accompanies Magwitch on the river, feeling loyalty and pity, and resolves to stay by his side.
- Magwitch
Wounded and shackled, but calm and content to have seen Pip; reflects on freedom and his past.
- Herbert Pocket
Rows the boat alongside Startop, helping in the escape.
- Startop
Rows with Herbert, assisting in the river journey.
- Wemmick
Joins the boat later, looking like a river-pilot, and helps with the escape.
Key passages
“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.”
Pip's disgust for Magwitch disappears, and he now sees only a kind benefactor who has been loyal to him.
Pip's change of heart towards Magwitch.
“I will never stir from your side, when I am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!”
Pip promises to stay with Magwitch and be as faithful to him as Magwitch has been.
Pip's vow of loyalty to Magwitch.
“If you knowed, dear boy, what it is to sit here alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day betwixt four walls, you'd envy me.”
Magwitch tells Pip that he cannot understand the joy of freedom unless he has been imprisoned.
Magwitch reflects on the value of freedom.