CHAPTER 3 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 3
What does Pip bring to the convict on the marshes?
Pip brings a file, bread, cheese, mincemeat, a pork pie, and a bottle of brandy — all stolen from his sister's pantry and Joe's forge.
What happens when Pip taps the sleeping figure on the shoulder at the Battery?
The man who jumps up is not Pip's convict but a second escaped prisoner. The man swears at Pip, swings at him, misses, and stumbles away into the mist.
How does the convict react when Pip hands him the food?
He devours it with desperate urgency, shoveling mincemeat down his throat, shivering violently, and looking around nervously as if someone might take it away.
What does Pip tell the convict about the second prisoner?
Pip tells him he found another man dressed the same way, also with a leg-iron, who was nodding asleep nearby and had a badly bruised face.
How does the convict react to learning about the second prisoner?
He grabs Pip by the collar, demands details, strikes his own left cheek to confirm where the bruise was, then frantically begins filing at his leg-iron like a madman.
What is the convict doing when Pip last sees him?
He is bent over his knee, filing hard at his leg-iron fetter, muttering impatient curses at it and at his injured leg.
What does the convict ask Pip to confirm he wasn't followed?
He asks "You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?" and "Nor giv' no one the officer to follow you?" Pip assures him he came alone.
What distinguishes the second convict from the first in appearance?
The second convict wears a flat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned felt hat and has a different face with a badly bruised left cheek. Otherwise he is dressed identically in coarse grey with a leg-iron.
What does Pip's convict call himself that shows self-awareness of his condition?
He calls himself a "poor wretched warmint" and says Pip would be a "fierce young hound" to hunt someone "as near death and dunghill" as he is.
How does Pip show compassion toward the convict in this chapter?
Despite his fear, Pip honors his promise, delivers the food, pities the convict's desolation, and says "I am glad you enjoy it" — showing genuine concern for the man's suffering.
Who is the second convict later revealed to be in the novel?
The second convict is Compeyson, the gentleman-criminal who betrayed Magwitch and whose testimony led to Magwitch receiving a harsher prison sentence.
What emotional moment reveals the convict's vulnerability?
After calling himself a "wretched warmint," something clicks in his throat "as if he had works in him like a clock" and he smears his ragged sleeve over his eyes, suggesting tears.
How does Pip's guilt manifest as he crosses the marshes?
Pip's guilty conscience makes him imagine that everything accuses him — gates cry "Stop him!", cattle call him a thief, and a signpost looks like a phantom condemning him to the prison Hulks.
What theme does the convict's animalistic eating illustrate?
It illustrates the dehumanizing effects of the criminal justice system and poverty. The convict has been reduced to pure survival instinct, eating like a desperate animal rather than a human being.
How does this chapter develop the theme of compassion across social boundaries?
Pip, a poor child, risks punishment to feed an escaped convict — someone even lower on the social ladder. His pity for the man's suffering transcends fear and social division.
What does the convict's obsession with the second prisoner foreshadow?
It foreshadows the Magwitch-Compeyson rivalry that drives major plot events later in the novel, including their recapture together and the climactic confrontation on the Thames.
What is pathetic fallacy and how does Dickens use it in Chapter 3?
Pathetic fallacy is attributing human emotions to nature. Dickens makes the misty, damp marshland mirror Pip's guilt — the landscape seems to accuse and pursue him as he carries stolen goods.
Identify the extended simile Dickens uses to describe the convict eating.
Dickens compares the convict to a large dog: both take "strong sharp sudden bites," swallow too fast, and look around nervously as if someone might steal their food.
How does Dickens use personification in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 3?
Gates and dykes "came bursting at me through the mist" as if shouting accusations, and a wooden signpost appears like a phantom. The landscape itself becomes an active, accusing presence.
What narrative technique does Dickens use by having an adult Pip narrate childhood events?
Dickens uses retrospective first-person narration. The adult Pip's voice adds ironic awareness — he can note childish misperceptions (like the ox's "clerical air") while still conveying the child's genuine terror.
Who says "I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't for myself I took it!" and to whom?
Pip blurts this out to a black ox that stares at him accusingly as he crosses the marshes. It reveals the depth of his guilt — he confesses his theft even to an animal.
What does the convict mean when he says Pip would be "but a fierce young hound indeed" to help hunt him?
He means it would be remarkably cruel for a child to betray someone as desperate and close to death as he is. It's a backhanded compliment — he's saying Pip is too kind for that.
What does the convict say when Pip warns him about the marshes causing ague?
He says "I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me" and adds he'd eat it even if he were about to be "strung up to that there gallows" immediately afterward.