Chapter 53 (Volume 3, Chapter 14) (Instalment 32):

Out on the Marshes / I am entrapped / I stand face to face with death / My life is preserved / The time draws near for his escape

Synopsis of Chapter 53 (Volume 3, Chapter 14) (Instalment 32)

Pip goes to the meeting-place on the marshes, near the sluice-house of the lime-kilns. Soon he is attacked, taken into the sluice-house and tied to a ladder. His captor is Orlick, who intends to kill him and put his body in the lime kiln. Orlick explains his hatred of Pip in grounds of family, class and sexual jealousy.He tells him that he was the mysterious intruder on the stairs on the night Magwitch arrived and that he knows the true story. Pip's main concerns are that Magwitch will think himself abandoned and that Joe and Biddy will never know of Pip's remorse.

As Orlick is about to attack Pip, Herbert, Startop and (ironically) Trabb's boy, rescue him, but Orlick escapes. Startop and Herbert have found the missing note in the Temple and followed Pip to the town, where Trabb's boy leads them to the sluice-house. They return to London, to be ready for Magwitch's escape the next day.

Commentary on Chapter 53 (Volume 3, Chapter 14) (Instalment 32)

Dickens could count on his readers' recognition of these parallels which give an added dimension to the drama: Pip is suffering the results of a life so far largely mis-spent; he is guilty of sins which must be acknowledged and repented of if he is to find moral and spiritual regeneration. (See also Structure: Moral structure).

The sudden exclusion of the light … black darkness in its place There is a purely practical reason for this - the shutter has been closed - but the symbolic meaning is of darkness beyond mere absence of light. (See also Imagery and symbolism: Lamps, candles, torches and stars).

His ‘You gave it to yourself … yourself none.' Pip is making an argument that comes straight from moral theology, which suggests a kind of motiveless evil in Orlick. But he also has clear reasons for hating Pip, based on family, class and sexual jealousy.

Pip is making an argument that comes straight from moral theology, which suggests a kind of motiveless evil in Orlick. But Orlick also has clear reasons for hating Pip, based on family, class and sexual jealousy.

Thus, Trabb's boy became their guide Another echo of the language of pilgrimage.

Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant nature … at anybody's expense. In Ch. 30; Vol. 2, Ch. 11), Pip is embarrassed by the boy's mockery – but he is now coming to a deeper understanding of many of the figures in his early life.

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