Tension is evident even in scenes where little action occurs. The scene of Christmas dinner has little action, but the back-and-forth of dialogue about pigs, church, children, and gratitude; Pip’s clutching the table leg in terror every time he thinks the missing food will be discovered; Joe’s serving him more gravy; and references to fugitives with iron on their legs; all work to create emotional action. It sets up the breaking point of the tension when Pip runs right into the sergeant holding the handcuffs. Similarly, the description of Joe working at the forge is a foreboding metaphor for what is going to happen to the convicts: “the bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives . . . and all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace.”
Joe’s decency of character is emphasized in these chapters. He tells Pip he would give a shilling if they “cut and run,” and his reaction to hearing that the convict stole his food is simply: “God knows you’re welcome to it . . . we wouldn’t have you starved . . . poor miserable fellow-creatur.” Joe is also aware that his station in his own house does not count for much when he observes of the food: “ . . . so far as it was ever mine.” It is somewhat of a mystery at this point, why a man as strong as Joe does not stand up to his wife and relatives more.
