CHAPTER 23 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 23
Where does Pip go to live at the beginning of Chapter 23?
Pip moves into the Pocket household in Hammersmith, where Mr. Pocket takes private students.
Who are the two other students boarding with Mr. Pocket?
Bentley Drummle and Startop. Drummle is sulky and near a baronetcy; Startop is younger and studious.
What does Pip discover about who actually runs the Pocket household?
The servants run the household. Flopson and Millers manage the children, and the servants eat and drink liberally at the family's expense.
What happens with the beef at dinner?
The cook mislays the beef, prompting Mr. Pocket to perform his characteristic hair-pulling gesture for the first time.
How does the baby nearly get injured after dinner?
Mrs. Pocket gives the baby nutcrackers to play with and then ignores it while discussing baronetcies. The baby nearly puts out its own eyes before little Jane coaxes the nutcrackers away.
What domestic crisis ends the chapter?
The housemaid Sophia reports that the cook is lying insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with fresh butter bundled up to sell for grease.
What does Pip decide to take up after seeing Drummle and Startop row on the Thames?
Pip resolves to get his own boat and hire a prize-wherry winner as a rowing tutor, intending to outdo both Drummle and Startop.
How was Mrs. Pocket raised, and why does it matter?
Her father, a knight, raised her to marry a title and shielded her from all domestic knowledge. This left her "highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless."
What is Mr. Pocket's educational background and current occupation?
He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. He became a private tutor ("Grinder"), then turned to literary compilation and correction to support his family.
Who is Mrs. Coiler and what role does she play?
Mrs. Coiler is the Pockets' toady neighbour, a widow who flatters everyone shamelessly and sympathizes with Mrs. Pocket's supposed disappointment in not marrying a title.
Who is little Jane and why is she significant?
Little Jane is one of the Pocket children, "a mere mite" who has taken charge of the others. She rescues the baby from the nutcrackers and is scolded by her mother for interfering.
Why does Mrs. Pocket show particular respect to Drummle?
Drummle is next heir but one to a baronetcy. Given Mrs. Pocket's obsession with titles and aristocratic rank, she recognizes him as "one of the elect."
What does the Pocket household reveal about class and competence?
It shows that social rank and practical ability are completely disconnected. Mrs. Pocket's aristocratic pretensions make her useless, while servants and even a small child handle real responsibilities.
How does Chapter 23 develop the theme of appearance versus reality?
The Pockets appear to be a respectable, well-bred family, but in reality their household is chaotic, their servants are in charge, and Mrs. Pocket's "aristocratic disposition" is a source of dysfunction rather than dignity.
What does Mrs. Pocket's treatment of Jane suggest about misplaced values?
Mrs. Pocket punishes Jane for saving the baby because she sees the act as an affront to her authority, prioritizing her social dignity over her child's safety. It illustrates how class obsession distorts basic human priorities.
How does the inversion of household authority serve as social commentary?
The servants hold real power while the parents are helpless, satirizing the idea that social rank confers ability. Those at the bottom of the class hierarchy prove more capable than those at the top.
What literary device does Mr. Pocket's hair-pulling gesture represent?
It is a comic motif — a recurring physical action that symbolizes his futile frustration. It appears multiple times in the chapter and becomes his signature gesture throughout the novel.
What is the "Dying Gladiator" allusion at the end of the chapter?
Mr. Pocket drops onto the sofa "in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator," alluding to the famous classical sculpture. It elevates his domestic despair to mock-heroic proportions, blending comedy with pathos.
How does Dickens use irony in the cook subplot?
The cook had flattered Mrs. Pocket by saying she was "born to be a Duchess," yet she is found drunk and stealing butter. Mrs. Pocket defends the cook and blames the housemaid who reported the crime.
What narrative technique does Pip use when describing the Pocket household?
Pip uses understated first-person irony. His dry observation that "the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been the kitchen" reveals the household's dysfunction without direct condemnation.
What does "plebeian" mean as used in describing Mrs. Pocket's upbringing?
Plebeian means common or lower-class. Mrs. Pocket's father guarded her from "plebeian domestic knowledge," meaning he kept her ignorant of ordinary household skills he considered beneath her rank.
What does "toady" mean in the description of Mrs. Coiler?
A toady is a person who flatters others obsequiously for personal advantage. Mrs. Coiler is called a "toady neighbour" because she constantly agrees with and praises the Pockets to stay in their favor.
Who is described as having "grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless"?
Mrs. Pocket. Pip uses this phrase to summarize the effect of her father's decision to raise her as a future titled lady, shielded from all practical knowledge.
Who cries, "Are infants to be nutcrackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save them?"
Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desperate frustration after Mrs. Pocket scolds Jane for taking the nutcrackers away from the baby to protect it.