“What could I become with these surroundings?” These words, spoken in the novel by the older Pip looking back on his life, foreshadow what direction his life will take and what power these surroundings and people will have over him. It is obvious to him that even if he is apprenticed to Joe, things are not going to go the way Pip and Joe dreamed they would when he was younger. Pip’s enlisting of Biddy to tutor him shows his sheer determination to rise above his coarseness and shame. Already his snobbish instincts are surfacing: When he confides all his feelings to Biddy, he never notices the intense interest she has in him. She is below his aspirations so he doesn’t notice her as a person, but as a tool to gain an education.
Guilt, terror, and secrecy continue to surface, both in the scene with the convict at the Jolly Bargemen, and in Pip’s fear of arrest after fighting with the pale young gentleman. The number of secrets Pip is carrying within him is increasing. The theft of food for the convict years ago continues to haunt him, especially when the man with the file shows up in the Bargemen. Pip can never seem to escape the taint of the criminal element. He has never told Joe about the convict and currently has told Joe nothing of Miss Havisham or his fight with the young man there. Secrecy rules.
