ESSAY: THEMATIC PRESENTATION AND THE ROLE OF MR. JAGGERS IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens

 

    Charles Dickens

 I wrote this years ago at University and I thought it might be of some interest to the reader.

 

 IN CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, the character of Mr. Jaggers is used to develop several major themes found in the novel, in particular the themes of social injustice, self-deception and finding one’s place in the world. Like Jane Austin’s Emma, Dickens’ novel describes the conflicts and imbalance that existed between the upper class and working class of early nineteenth century England. And, like Austen, Dickens creates a novel of “un-deception” (Cutmore, lecture), where the reader can examine the long and painful process of self-discovery and initiation into society engaged in by Pip.

 

Secondary characters are used to create texture and atmosphere in a story’s setting as well as to advance the plot and to develop and define a story’s themes. They are also used to help the reader better understand the more complex psychologies of major characters by allowing the reader to compare their personalities, motivations, and actions with those of the protagonists. The character of Mr. Pumblechook, for example, is typical of several secondary characters in Great Expectations. His portrayal is clearly flat and one-dimensional. He lacks the depth of motivation and character development we find in Pip. He is a stereotype created by Dickens to represent the vices of envy and hypocrisy, and as such the reader compares his character with that of Pip for similarities and differences.

Mr. Jaggers as a secondary character, on the other hand, is more complex because his other role is in helping to develop the story’s themes. Mr. Jaggers is a man of knowledge. He is aware of the deceptions and false hopes Pip and other characters succumb to. His portrayal as a lawyer allows Dickens to broaden the scope of his novel to include an examination of much of English society as he explores his major theme of social injustice. The reader clearly sees the parallels that exist between the private illusions held by Pip and the public illusion of which they are a part. Mr. Jaggers acts as a kind of ‘bridge’ between the private world of Kent and the public realm of England. Ironically, his office is on “Little Britain” street in London. (Dickens, 187) By understanding Mr. Jaggers’ motivations and actions, the reader more clearly appreciates the processes by which Pip and other characters become deceived. Mr. Jaggers acts as a foil to Pip. By contrasting his informed actions and observations with those of a naïve and self-deceived Pip, we can better appreciate the values and conflicts Dickens wishes to present.

The illusions and self-deceptions the reader sees dominating much of Pip’s life stemmed from a broader systematic evil that Dickens saw typified in the English justice system. Dickens felt that the system relied too heavily on observable evidence and objective realities in its decision-making process. By doing so, the subjective truths and personal realities of individuals were ignored or rendered invisible by the surface appearance of guilt or innocence. Thus, Molly appears innocent when she is, in fact, guilty of her crime, and Magwitch appears guilty far in excess of his actual crimes; all because the appearance of things was deemed so important. Dickens felt there could be no true justice in England with such a legal system. Instead, those who could purchase the services of someone like Mr. Jaggers to manipulate appearances to their advantage succeeded, while those who could not suffered at the hands of the system. This reliance on appearances had further implications for Dickens. Since the English justice system could only be as ‘just’ as its people then it followed that appearances played a great role in the lives of people in general. If people believed more in the appearance of things than their reality, then they were deceived. And since very few people were aware of the falseness of appearances then they remained deceived.

Mr. Jaggers represents those forces that shape both social institutions as well as individuals like Pip. He represents the forces of illusion and false appearances by which the majority of people are deceived. Pip is deceived by the false-seeming appearances of wealth, status and physical beauty, as well as by the illusion, so commonly shared, that he lives in a just society. Such forces are hidden, save for a few of “the true sort” (239) who remain clear-sighted and alert to them. These forces, for Dickens, were ever present, and he conveys this sense to us in when Pip first meets Mr. Jaggers in a chance encounter on the stairs at Satis House. He is present in Pip’s life years before their first formal meeting, and he remains a hidden force in his life for years afterward. We first encounter him “groping his way down” (111) the darkened stairs of Miss Havisham’s house as Pip and Estella ascend. Symbolically, Pip’s climbing of the stairs is the beginning of his ‘apprenticeship’ with self-deception as he becomes further involved with Miss Havisham. The single candle, weakly illuminating his way, represents the illusions of youth that somehow all will work out well in the end, and that fate is somehow benevolent. Mr. Jaggers holds no such illusions, and as a man of experience, he descends the stairs unassisted by the light of false hope.

    Estella and Pip

The significance of the candle is understood in the larger pattern of light and dark imagery that Dickens uses throughout the novel. Dickens equates darkness with a lack of insight and the dim light of candles with the illusion of appearances, for candles only partially illuminate what we see. Moments of greatest confusion, crisis or despair invariably occur at night or in mists and overcast weather, or in dimly lit rooms. For example, Miss Havisham’s desperate attempt to insulate herself from the pain she felt led her to shun daylight and live indoors in perpetual twilight. The meeting during which Mr. Jaggers reveals to Pip his great expectations occurs in Mrs. Joe’s “feebly” lit front parlour. (164) In contrast, Mr. Jaggers is associated with darkness and a lack of illumination because he is very aware of the power of appearances. He is careful not to trust what he sees, but rather, what he knows of a person. “Take nothing on its looks” he says and advises Pip to “take everything on evidence”. (351) Appearances can be dangerous because they obscure reality. During dinner at Miss Havisham’s Mr. Jaggers does not look at Estella, instead he “listened, and in due course, answered, but he never looked at her.” (263) He momentarily glances at Estella only after Miss Havisham has her wear a beautiful set of jewellery. While Pip assumes, he is looking at her because she is even more beautiful, the reader is aware that Mr. Jaggers is thinking in more in terms of the value of such “portable property” (224) than about the dangerous and illusory nature of Estella’s beauty. And in an earlier scene, Mr. Jaggers has just finished haranguing Mr. Wopsle for not attending to the facts of a newspaper’s account of a recent murder trial. He condemns Mr. Wopsle for assuming the accused was guilty and reminded him that English law “suppose[s] every man to be innocent until he is proved…guilty” (161) Ironically, Mr. Jaggers knows all too well that it is the appearance of guilt or innocence that is important, and that this great tenet of English law is nothing more than an illusion of justice in an unjust society. In the private illusions of Pip’s fated love for Estella, and the public illusions of the justice system, Dickens reminds us of the potency of such illusions to exist and multiply.

    Miss Havisham

For Mr. Jaggers, appearances are power, and he is scrupulous in maintaining them. In Little Britain Street, he tells one client that he wants “to know no more than I know” (191) Mr. Jaggers realizes that he must accept at face value what his clients present to him. If he becomes privy to their motivations or becomes emotionally involved with them then his ability to manipulate the appearance of their innocence in court would be compromised. He uses his formidable powers of logic and rhetoric to promote the most beneficial image of his clients, whether they are guilty or not. As we shall see, it is Mr. Jaggers’ informed social conscience that drives him to defend both the guilty and the innocent with such zeal. In his relationship with Pip, we are most clearly aware of Mr. Jaggers’ need to distance himself from his clients. To become involved would jeopardize his objectivity and make him susceptible, like Pip, to illusions and false hopes. We see him constantly “wash his clients off” (233) and the perfumed scent of soap is always with him like a barrier to those he deals with. He states to Pip at the outset of their relationship that he is there because he is paid to be, and that the choices to be made are Pip’s alone. He will not advise Pip; he will merely inform him of his options: “I don’t recommend him, observe; because I never recommend anybody” (166) While Mr. Jaggers does not advise Pip, as such, he nevertheless challenges him to examine his choices and to clearly see his self-deceptions. Pip, however, is not up to the challenge. Upon their second London meeting, Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he will “go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine” (194) Prophetic words, but ones that Pip fails to heed. Later, when Pip asks for an increase in his allowance to make additional purchases to complement his new lifestyle of a gentleman, Mr. Jaggers asks, “Now, what do you make of four times five?” (221), referring to the advance of twenty pounds. Mr. Jaggers challenges Pip to consider what the money really means to him, and to acknowledge his spendthrift habits. But Pip, at that time, has no such awareness of his situation.

 

Mr. Jaggers is a man of knowledge. He is aware of things other characters, like Pip, are not. The ironic narration of the adult Pip provides the reader with enough clues as to the disappointing turn Pip’s great expectations will take. Consequently, the observations and commentary of Mr. Jaggers, especially where Pip is concerned, take on highly ironic overtones. The quality of Mr. Jaggers ‘advice’ to Pip is most clearly demonstrated in the telling scene at Miss Havisham’s shortly after Estella has returned from abroad. In a fit of passion, Miss Havisham exhorts Pip to blindly devote himself to Estella, and to submit himself to her will. In a macabre scene, the aging Miss Havisham once again has Pip wheel her around the darkened room, all the while urging him to debase himself before Estella. At this point Pip’s “guardian” (261), Mr. Jaggers enters. His comments are sardonic and charged, for he meets Pip’s eye, saying simply, “Indeed? Singular!” (262) The effect is striking for the reader, and it should be as well for Pip, for Mr. Jaggers brings with him a sense of reality that should be obvious to anyone not wholly involved in their own self-deceptions. He even parodies the ritual Pip had so often performed in the past by himself wheeling Miss Havisham around her decaying and dust-filled room. He goes further still by asking Pip another question about how often he sees Estella. What he really asks is for Pip to consider how well he knows her and whether she is in fact worth the sacrifice Miss Havisham would have him make. Yet, importantly, when Miss Havisham asks the lawyer to stop this potentially disruptive line of questioning, he complies. In this scene, Mr. Jaggers holds up a mirror, asking everyone to see themselves in it, but the light is too dim and all that can be seen is illusion. The adult Pip, looking back on this moment, comments they were all afraid of Mr. Jaggers. They were afraid of him because he forced them to look at themselves and their illusions, however briefly. Significantly, Mr. Jaggers did not ask them to lay aside their illusions; he observes and comments, but does not interfere. His role as a lawyer is to use people’s illusions and to accept the facades that they themselves believe in and act.

 

While many of the novel’s characters live lives based on self-deception, not all of them are unaware that they live in such a manner. Pip is aware, for example, how his love for Estella has led him to despair, and he is also aware of how poorly he treated Joe and Biddy in his quest to become a gentleman. Estella later says she is aware that she has lived an emotionless and contrived existence but says she could not help herself. Nor had Miss Havisham been able to help herself in her life, as she says in a revelation made so tragically late in life. Dickens seems to be saying that one need not be blind to the fact that one is living a life of illusion. Self-deception becomes almost a conspiracy. We witness how Miss Havisham’s self-deceptions support and feed Pip’s illusions, as Pip’s, in turn, reinforce Miss Havisham’s, whose illusions, in turn, reinforce Estella’s, and so on in a vicious circle.

    Young Pip and Magwitch

Mr. Jaggers’ role places such private struggles in a larger social context. The reader compares Miss Havisham’s relatives, “toadies and humbugs” (109), as Pip calls them, with those waiting for Mr. Jaggers outside his office. Both groups are deluded as to how their lives are to be 'saved'. For the group at Satis House, it is to be through Miss Havisham’s money. For the group in Little Britain Street, it is Mr. Jaggers who will bring them the illusion of justice.

And the illusion that justice exists for the poor is typified by the character of Mike. Mike, the habitual criminal, cannot understand the importance of how a character witness he has recruited for an upcoming court case appears--in how he dresses, in his manners, speech and so on. Mr. Jaggers requires that Mike's witness appear to be the type of person Mike has told Mr. Jaggers he is, and that the witness will swear in court what Mike has told Mr. Jaggers he is supposed to have witnessed (namely where Mike had been and for how long). Mike is self-deceived. He feels that if he provides someone—anyone—who will swear to something approximating the truth, then what does it matter? Mike does not see how at risk he is from a justice system where appearances are so important. For Mr. Jaggers, everything must appear as it is purports to be. The witness Mike provides is supposed to be of a certain social status. He is supposed to have certain information to swear before the court, and Mr. Jaggers is supposed to know only this and nothing more. But Mike has clumsily revealed to the lawyer that his witness is false. This deceit, because it represents a glaring reality, is something Mr. Jaggers cannot allow to enter into his preparations for manipulating appearances during the court proceedings. Mike, in other words, believes he can get justice, and that Mr. Jaggers will battle with the system to win him his fair share. The reality is that there is no justice for the poor unless their appearance of innocence can be made unchallengeable. Mr. Jaggers’ action in defending both the guilty and the innocent alike demonstrates that, for him, their criminality is secondary to the injustice done to them by society.

Unlike Mike, the criminal Compeyson holds no such illusions of justice. He knows the system is corrupt. He also knows the power of appearances. If he appears penitent, and abused, and a victim, then he will receive a sentence only half as long as Magwitch’s. Drummel, too, hold no illusions. He is not deceived by social pretensions and display, like Pip. Mr. Jaggers calls him “the true sort” (239) because of his clear-sightedness. Mr. Jaggers sees Drummel as having the potential of becoming someone like himself, but also having the potential of becoming a brutal husband.

 

We have seen self-deception at work in several characters and we must ask why they do not recognize their illusions for what they are, and attempt to change? Why doesn’t Pip see that to become a gentleman is no guarantee of security of happiness? The answer must be that illusions create power, and power creates security, even if it is temporary. In Mr. Jaggers’ world, appearances are power, and control is to be gotten by manipulating appearances. Those who are good at it, consciously, like Compeyson, or unconsciously, like Mr. Pumblechook, gain what power they need; those who have money or position, like Miss Havisham, can indulge in such image-making that suits them, and even come to believe in their pretenses. Those who ignore appearances or who disdain pretense, like Drummel, if they are lucky or rich or brutal enough, get their way. But those who are poor, or the aspiring, like Pip, must be content to live with the incomplete and usually temporary successes of their self-deceptions. They will be discontented because they will be aware, at some level at least, of the illusions they live by, or else they will be taken advantage of by those with a better understanding of the false realities of their lives, or fate or time will reveal them in the end.

Pip had the love of Joe and Biddy. He had the scorn of Drummel and the ridicule of Trabb’s boy. He had the warnings of Estella and the friendship of Herbert and Wemmick. He had also the challenges of Mr. Jaggers, and yet he still refused to see. Dickens makes it clear in his portrayal of Pip how powerful illusion and false hopes are in shaping and ruling our lives. 

 

    Joe and Young Pip

Mr. Jaggers leaves the story as he came in, as a man of social conscience. He saves Molly because he saw her as a victim of an unjust society. He saved her daughter because he saw the children of the poor “being generated in great numbers for certain destruction” (424), and here was one child he could save. When he could save people from injustice, he did so. But he also saw himself, irrevocably, as a part of a system whereby the poor, like fish, “came into his net.” (425) This is Mr. Jaggers’ great illusion—that he is fated to be part of a system he despises.

In contrast, Pip, in his compassion for Magwitch and his reconciliation with Joe and Biddy, and his long, painful process of self-discovery, moves beyond his illusions. Like Wemmick and Herbert, and of course Joe and Biddy, Pip comes to make peace with himself and to discover in the virtues of compassion, patience, understanding and love, the true guides to life.

    Mr. Jaggers

Finally, the contrast between Mr. Jaggers’ understanding of Magwitch’s legacy and Pip’s understanding is significant. Mr. Jaggers cannot understand why Pip did not do more to secure Magwitch’s “portable property”. For Mr. Jaggers, money represents power. It is a powerful weapon to be used against an unjust society, for it is one of society’s most potent illusions. It can also be used, like the drawbridge at Wemmick’s ‘castle’, for protection. For Pip, Magwitch’s money had to be sacrificed if he were to redeem himself. We see the long process of his renewal in “the East” (489) and return to England, as a kind of investment. Pip ‘invests’ in himself. He invests in who he really is. He does so with trust, honesty, and hope. He builds without great expectations for the future, but with expectations enough. Here the contrast with Mr. Jaggers is clear, for Pip has moved beyond him, into the light where Mr. Jaggers does not go, because Pip, unlike Mr. Jaggers, has discovered faith.

 

        Grade= A

Prof comments: Donald--This is a very fine paper, consistently interesting. Except for the odd sentence here and there that might be refined for the sake of clarity, or the odd idea that might usefully have been expanded upon, your writing is good. the paper, overall, is well-structured, as are individual paragraphs. You make some fine, insightful observations, and have obviously read the novel with care and a sensitivity to details. 

It is a compliment to the basic soundness of the paper that I am able to quibble with some of its content. You might have said forthrightly--that is, explicitly, and at the start--that as you see it, in the moral scheme of the novel, Jaggers appears to be an ambiguous character. You make this point, but you do so by offering your qualifications concerning Jaggers' character one by one and never FORCEFULLY bring your analysis of him together in one place.

 

 

[I think the prof makes a good point here. I didn't unequivocally state this about Mr. Jaggers in my opening comments (Had I done so, it would have  guided the reader to the point I was trying to make more easily), then I could have gone on to list examples that suggest his character flaws. I do like the discussion of the light/dark settings and atmospheres that Dickens uses to ‘frame’ his characters, including Mr. Jagger.

Upon re-reading this second-year Uni essay written during the last Ice Age, I make some observations:

 

Mr. Jaggers is a frustrating character for me because he could have been a much more developed human being—that’s what Pip’s journey is all about, with his hard-won self-awareness and self-acceptance. Mr. Jaggers has the intelligence and understanding about his situation, but his cynicism and aloof manner lock him into a narrow life, as limited in many ways, as the lives of Miss Havisham and Estella. He feels he cannot change and must stay in his ‘twilight’ world. I look at him and ask "Why can’t you change?" His failure resonates with me more than does Pip’s successes. At the end, we're left with a sense of closure around Pip’s life. We see his future, living a humbler life, but also a happier and more fulfilling one. On the other hand, Mr. Jagger, his life, with its static, contrived and artificial nature is almost too irritating for me to examine. it seems there are so many more Mr. Jaggers in the world than there are Pips and, for that matter, Joes!]

 

Cheers, Jake.