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Great Expectations Chapter 13 Summary

  • On the day of the visit, Joe works himself up into a tizzy. He can't decide what to wear, and puts on his finest digs.
  • He pops his collar to seem more gentlemanly, but the poppage just pushes up the hair in the back of his head so that he looks like a bird.
  • Pip wishes Joe would just be himself and wear his normal workday clothes—as though he doesn't understand exactly what Joe is feeling.
  • Mrs. Joe, Joe, and Pip walk into town with Mrs. Joe at the helm. She's wearing a big sun bonnet and is carrying an umbrella and lots of other random items. Pip thinks she's popping her proverbial collar for all the town to see.
  • Mrs. Joe hangs with Mr. Pumblechook during the visit, but she's still ticked off that she's not invited.
  • Estella opens that gate for Pip and Joe, but she doesn't say anything, nor does she look at them. Surprise, surprise.
  • Estella leads the Gargery men down the dark, labyrinthine passages.
  • Joe is a mess. When she asks him a question, he tells Pip the answer instead of answering her directly, and he tries to talk all elegant but just ends up sounding, um, incomprehensible.
  • Pip is MORTIFIED.
  • Finally, Miss Havisham tells Joe that Pip has earned a reward: 25 pounds as an investment in Pip's apprenticeship in the smithy.
  • (Apprentices usually had to pay money to get training, kind of like having to pay for school, except you learn a useful trade. The money covered the apprentice's expenses, like food and rent.)
  • Joe is flabbergasted. That's a LOT of dough.
  • Miss Havisham sends Pip away, and she tells Joe never to expect more money from her than what she's just given.
  • As they leave Satis House, Joe is dumbfounded by the amount of money he's holding, but Pip is crestfallen: he thought that Miss Havisham was going to adopt him or something, and instead he's just lost Estella for good.
  • When they arrive at Mr. Pumblechook, Joe conjures up a story about how Miss Havisham did not feel well enough to entertain a lady such as one Mrs. Joe Gargery, but that she sends her best regards. Total poppycock, but Mrs. Joe eats it up.
  • When Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook learn that Miss Havisham has given a gift of 25 pounds, they go CRAZY.
  • Pip is taken to the court that very day to be sworn in as an official blacksmith's apprentice, thus binding him to the trade for the rest of his days.
  • That night, the whole family celebrates at the Three Jolly Bargemen with a big feast.
  • Everyone but Pip, that is. He's just depressed.