CHAPTER 25 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 25
What three fellow students does Pip describe at the beginning of Chapter 25?
Bentley Drummle, Startop, and Herbert Pocket. Drummle is sulky and dim, Startop is gentle and devoted to his mother, and Herbert is Pip's intimate companion.
Where does Pip go for an overnight visit in Chapter 25?
Pip visits Wemmick's home in Walworth, a tiny Gothic cottage designed to look like a miniature castle.
What does Wemmick prepare for supper when Pip visits?
A stewed steak of home preparation and a cold roast fowl from a cook's shop, obtained as a favor from a juryman Wemmick's firm had "let down easy."
What happens every night at nine o'clock at Wemmick's castle?
A small cannon called "the Stinger" is fired. The Aged Parent heats the poker, Wemmick takes the red-hot poker to the battery, and the blast shakes the whole cottage.
Which of Miss Havisham's relatives appear in this chapter, and how do they treat Pip?
Mr. and Mrs. Camilla and Georgiana appear. They hate Pip with "the hatred of cupidity and disappointment" but fawn upon him with base meanness because of his expectations.
What does Wemmick tell Pip about an upcoming dinner invitation?
Wemmick says Mr. Jaggers plans to invite Pip and his three fellow students to dinner, and that whatever Jaggers serves will be excellent though not varied.
What does Pip observe about Wemmick the next morning as they walk to the office?
Wemmick gradually becomes dryer and harder, his mouth tightens into a "post-office" again, and by the time they reach Little Britain he seems completely unconscious of his Walworth life.
How is Bentley Drummle physically described?
He is heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension, with a sluggish complexion and a large awkward tongue that seems to loll about in his mouth.
What animal imagery does Pip use to describe Drummle during their rowing?
Pip compares Drummle to "some uncomfortable amphibious creature" that creeps inshore among the rushes and overhanging banks while Pip and Startop row together in midstream.
Who is the Aged Parent, and what is his most notable characteristic?
The Aged Parent is Wemmick's elderly father — a very old man in a flannel coat who is clean, cheerful, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. He communicates mainly through nodding.
What does the Aged Parent say about Wemmick's property?
He proudly declares that the spot and its beautiful works "ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment."
How does Wemmick describe Georgiana in terms of her personality?
Pip (not Wemmick) describes Georgiana as "an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love."
What major theme does Wemmick's separation of office and home life illustrate?
The division between public and private identity. Wemmick keeps his domestic warmth completely sealed off from his professional hardness as a survival strategy against the dehumanizing effects of his work.
How does the Camilla-Georgiana subplot reinforce one of the novel's central themes?
It reinforces the theme of mercenary social relations. These relatives hate Pip but grovel before his perceived wealth, showing how money and expectations corrupt human relationships.
How does Wemmick's self-sufficiency contrast with Pip's situation?
Wemmick builds everything himself and maintains his property through his own labor, while Pip spends someone else's money and has quickly developed expensive habits he cannot sustain on his own.
What literary device does Dickens use by describing Wemmick's mouth as a "post-office"?
Visual metaphor. The post-office mouth represents Wemmick's mechanical, slot-like professional demeanor and its tightening on the walk back to work symbolizes his dehumanizing transformation.
What structural technique dominates Chapter 25?
Juxtaposition. The chapter contrasts Drummle with Startop, office Wemmick with home Wemmick, and the grim world of Newgate with the whimsical Walworth castle.
How does Dickens use comic hyperbole in describing Wemmick's castle?
The fountain makes "the back of your hand quite wet," the Stinger's blast nearly blows the Aged from his chair, and the moat is four feet wide and two deep — all exaggerated miniatures played completely straight.
What is ironic about Wemmick's description of obtaining the cold roast fowl?
Wemmick casually admits he pressured a juryman into giving him a free fowl by reminding the man that "if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it" — leveraging his legal power for personal gain.
What does "niggardly" mean as used to describe Drummle?
Stingy, miserly, or unwilling to spend or share. The word describes Drummle's tight-fisted and ungenerous nature.
What does "cupidity" mean in the phrase "the hatred of cupidity and disappointment"?
Extreme greed or avarice, especially for wealth. The Havisham relatives hate Pip because their greed for Miss Havisham's money has been thwarted by his expectations.
What does "inveigled" mean as Wemmick uses it regarding Jaggers's watch chain?
To be persuaded or lured through deception or flattery. Wemmick says any thief who was "inveigled into touching" the chain would drop it as if red-hot.
Who says "the office is one thing, and private life is another" and what does it mean?
Wemmick says this to Pip at Walworth. It encapsulates his philosophy of strict compartmentalization — he refuses to let his professional and domestic lives overlap in any way.
What does Wemmick mean when he says his castle "brushes the Newgate cobwebs away"?
He means that building and maintaining his home is a therapeutic counterbalance to the grim work at Jaggers's office, which is closely associated with Newgate Prison and the criminal world.