CHAPTER 10 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 10
What does Pip decide to do at the beginning of Chapter 10?
He decides to get Biddy to teach him everything she knows so he can become "uncommon" and worthy of Estella.
Where does Pip go on Saturday evening and why?
He goes to the Three Jolly Bargemen pub to collect Joe, under strict orders from his sister to bring Joe home.
Who does Pip find with Joe at the pub?
He finds Mr. Wopsle and a mysterious stranger he has never seen before, sitting by the kitchen fire.
What does the stranger use to stir his rum-and-water?
He stirs it with a file — the same file Pip stole from Joe's forge and gave to the convict on the marshes.
What does the stranger give Pip before leaving the pub?
He gives Pip a shilling wrapped in crumpled paper. The paper turns out to contain two one-pound notes.
What happens when Joe tries to return the two-pound notes?
Joe runs back to the Jolly Bargemen, but the stranger has already gone. Joe leaves word about the notes with the pub.
Where does Mrs. Joe store the two one-pound notes?
She seals them in paper and puts them under dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot in the state parlour.
How does Biddy respond when Pip asks her to teach him?
She immediately agrees and begins carrying out her promise within five minutes, showing her generous and obliging nature.
How is the mysterious stranger physically described?
He is "secret-looking" with his head on one side, one eye half shut as if taking aim with an invisible gun, wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a handkerchief tied over his head.
How does Joe respond when the stranger offers to buy him a drink?
Joe initially resists, saying he is not in the habit of drinking at anyone's expense but his own, showing his honest and independent character.
What role does Mr. Wopsle play in this chapter?
He drinks rum with Joe at the pub, explains Pip's family relationship to the stranger, and finishes with a dramatic recitation from Richard III.
How does Mrs. Joe react to the shilling the stranger gave Pip?
She assumes it must be counterfeit, saying "A bad un, I'll be bound, or he wouldn't have given it to the boy!" but it proves to be genuine.
How does Chapter 10 develop the theme of social class?
Pip's desire to become "uncommon" and his request for Biddy's tutoring show his growing class consciousness, spurred by his experience at Satis House with Estella.
How does guilt function as a theme in this chapter?
The file and the stranger's money revive Pip's guilt over helping the convict. He calls his past aid "the guiltily coarse and common thing" and has nightmares about the file.
What does the stranger's money foreshadow about the novel's larger plot?
It foreshadows that Magwitch is secretly repaying Pip, prefiguring the revelation that the convict — not Miss Havisham — is Pip's true benefactor.
How does the chapter contrast innocence and experience?
Pip's innocent desire for self-improvement through education collides with the darker adult world of crime and secrecy represented by the stranger and the file.
What literary device does Dickens use in describing Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's school?
Satire. Dickens exaggerates the chaos — students fighting, reading illegible Bibles in a "frightful chorus," the teacher falling into a coma — to mock the state of working-class education.
What is the effect of dramatic irony in the pub scene?
Only Pip and the reader understand the significance of the file. Joe and Mr. Wopsle are completely unaware, creating tension as the stranger communicates a secret threat.
What sustained metaphor does Dickens use to describe the stranger?
The stranger is repeatedly described as "taking aim" at Pip with an "invisible gun," creating a metaphor of threat and surveillance that runs through the entire pub scene.
How does Dickens use foreshadowing in this chapter?
The stranger's connection to the convict and his gift of money foreshadow the novel's central revelation: that Magwitch, not Miss Havisham, is secretly funding Pip's expectations.
What does "felicitous" mean as used in the chapter's opening line?
It means pleasingly apt or well-suited. Pip uses it with gentle self-mockery to describe his idea of asking Biddy to tutor him.
What does "paroxysm" mean in the description of Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt?
A sudden attack or outburst, here referring to a sudden episode of rheumatic pain that causes the old woman to fall into a stupor.
What does "cogitation" mean when Joe is described with "profound cogitation"?
Deep thought or contemplation. Dickens uses it humorously, since Joe is only pretending to think deeply about simple questions, following the pub's social custom.
Who says "What the Blue Blazes is he?" and in what context?
The mysterious stranger says it in frustration after Joe gives roundabout answers about whether Pip is his son or nephew, unable to get a straight answer about the boy's relationship to Joe.
What does Pip mean when he describes being "on secret terms of conspiracy with convicts"?
He is reflecting on his guilt after the stranger reveals the file. He sees his childhood act of helping the convict as a shameful secret that makes him "coarse and common" — the very thing he is trying to escape.