At the beginning of C6 Pip feels bad because he lied to Joe.

Pip doesn’t feel ashamed for stealing Mrs Joe’s food because he doesn’t love her. However, he loves Joe and so the lies make him feel bad.

Mr Pumblechook declares that the convict climbed the outer walls and used his bedsheets to clamber down the chimney and exited out the same way. This suggests Pumblechook is very imaginative and also pompous as he won’t let anyone challenge his idea.

Pip was to be apprenticed which means learning a trade over a period of years.

Pip is educated at an evening school. The teacher constantly falls asleep as the kids learn very little. They pay for this lack of education. The owner recites to them suggesting education was rote learning rather than learning how to think critically for yourself.

We learn that Joe’s childhood was very difficult. His father was a drunk who beat up his mum and him. His mum tried to take him away several times, but his father always found them and brought them back. He hadn’t really gone to school much as it cost money, but he became apprenticed as a blacksmith so he could start earning.

Joe is motivated to stay with Mrs Joe because she reminds him of his mother. Also he sees himself in Pip and wants him to be cared for.

The suspense of Chapter 4 is resolved as Pip does not receive the blame for stealing the pie. The militia enter and ask for help in making irons to catch the escaped convicts.

The Sergeant is very polite and upright. He says all the right things, although he says more than he has too.

The convict realises that Pip did not tell on him and cannot understand why he kept silent about him.

The two convicts are angry at one another because they were tried and convicted of the same crime. Convict 2 blames Convict 1 for being there, Convict 1 simply wants to harm Convict 2.

Joe says he was happy that the convict got food for his night on the marshes. This shows Joe is a caring person.

The reference to the ship as a ‘wicked Noah’s ark’ is because there are so many convicts packed onto the ship and instead of being taken somewhere nice they are going to do hard labour.

Pip meets another convict when he sets out to make his delivery who he thinks is the man employed to eat him.

It is surprising when Convict 1 reacts to the news of Convict 2 as it suggests there never was another man with him and Pip has been scared for no reason.

Mr Wopsle is the clerk for the church and he says that ‘Swine were the companions of the Prodigal (Jesus)’ Mr Wopsle says it to suggest there is something wrong with Pip. Dickens includes it to make a joke about Mr Wopsle eating pork whilst talking about pigs.

It is ironic that Mrs Joe does not attend church as she claims to be a devout Christian. She claims she does not attend so she can get more work done as Joe and Pip aren’t in the house.

Mrs Joe and Joe host Christmas dinner. They invite Mr Wopsle the church clerk, Mr Hubble the wheelwright and his wife, and also Mr Pumblechook who was a grain merchant and Joe’s uncle.

Mr Wopsle and Mr Pumblechook are both prideful and entitled men who have a lot to say without actually saying very much.

At this point in the novel it is suggested that Pip would become a blacksmith apprenticed to Joe.

Suspense is built at the end of Chapter 4 as Pip has stolen a pie to give to the convict which was to be presented as the pudding at Christmas dinner. He is now stressing about how he will not get the blame for his act of thievery.

When Great Expectations opens Pip is in the graveyard looking at his Mum and Dad’s gravestone.

Dickens hooks his reader immediately by having Pip attacked by an escaped convict.

Pip is afraid that if he doesn’t return with a file and food for the convict then he will be disembowelled by the convict’s friend.

Mrs Joe calls the stick ‘Tickler’ because she used it to hurt people rather than actually make them laugh. It shows she has a twisted sense of humour.

The story is told from Pip’s point of view. He is reflecting on his own history. This was unusual at the time as the majority of novels were written in the present tense with a third person voice – not in first person, past tense.

Pip is technically Joe’s brother-in-law, as Joe is married to Pip’s big sister. Joe and Mrs Joe are raising Pip, although Joe is more like Pip’s best friend.

There is physical comedy in Pip getting tipped over the gravestone, even though this is threatening behaviour from the convict. It is also physically funny when Pip is chased around the kitchen and Joe acts as his protector from Mrs Joe.

At the end of Chapter 2 Pip runs from the house to give the convict the stolen supplies on a very bleak morning. (dramatic epithet)