Humor, satire, crisp descriptions, and tension are strong elements in these chapters. Dickens satirizes the educational system with the doddering great-aunt sleeping through her class. He criticizes child labor and the way families use their children to support them, by showing Pip’s sister putting him to work and keeping the money, and then sending him to Miss Havisham’s in the hope of some financial gain. (Dickens’ own mother preferred him to work rather than send him to school.) He satirizes the merchant class when Pip observes that Pumblechook conducts business by watching the sadler, who watches the coachmaker, who watches the baker, who watches the grocer, who watches the watchmaker, who is working. Pip concludes that the watchmaker is the only one actually engaged in his trade. Playful humor is exercised when Pip assumes that he is always supposed to walk the same way home because his Catechism said to walk the same way all the days of his life.
Miss Havisham and her house are examples of Dickens’ masterful use of detail and description to create character and atmosphere. Tension is present even in static scenes such as Pip and Pumblechook having breakfast. Pumblechook’s firing questions interspersed with Pip’s trying to eat, think, or walk gives the scene a sharp, see-sawing rhythm. The questions are almost physical attacks more than they are words.
