Chapter 39 of Great Expectations

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In chapter 39, Pip's benefactor is revealed. It is around this person that the mystery of Pip's expectations is built. It is a pivotal chapter in the way the plot develops. In this chapter Pip finally accepts that the way he acted in London was wrong and that chasing Estella was very pointless. The importance and drama of this chapter can be seen from the beginning. Dickens shows this to the reader in many ways, such as the build-up of atmosphere between certain people, the drama and the mystery behind Magwitch's behaviour and the way he acts, and Pip's often fluttering state of emotion. The first couple of lines from the chapter read: "I was three and twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third birthday was a week gone." It also makes the reader think about where Pip's wealth is coming from. This makes the reader very curious, and also possibly provides a clue that something relating to the mystery about the wealth may soon be answered. Pip describes the absence of Herbert as leaving him "dispirited and anxious, and long disappointed", and "the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all." Nothing has happened, but there is the feeling that everything is not as it seems, which is then made clearer by Dickens' description of the atmosphere of London: "It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet: and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East there were an eternity of cloud and wind." This is a very bleak and sad description and it is almost as if nature herself knows of the happening that is soon to take over Pip's entire happiness and again, is possibly a clue that a shocking announcement is soon to be made to Pip, again bringing the reader's
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