CHAPTER 37 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 37
Why does Pip visit Wemmick at the Castle on Sunday?
Pip wants to consult Wemmick in his private Walworth capacity about how to secretly help Herbert Pocket establish himself in business.
Who greets Pip when he arrives at the Castle?
The Aged P. (Wemmick's father) lets Pip in and lowers the drawbridge, telling him Wemmick expected his visit and would return from his afternoon walk shortly.
Who accompanies Wemmick home from his walk?
Miss Skiffins, a woman who works in the post-office service and is Wemmick's romantic interest. She is a frequent Sunday visitor at the Castle.
What does Pip ask Wemmick to help him do?
Pip asks Wemmick to help him secretly provide Herbert with an income of about a hundred pounds a year and gradually buy him into a business partnership, all without Herbert's knowledge.
Who is Clarriker and what role does he play?
Clarriker is a young shipping-broker who needs both capital and an intelligent partner. Wemmick and Skiffins arrange for Herbert to join his firm, funded secretly by Pip.
How much money does Pip pay down to establish Herbert?
Pip pays half of five hundred pounds down, with additional payments arranged from his income and contingent on his coming into his property.
Does Herbert ever discover Pip's involvement in his new position?
No. The plan is managed so cleverly that Herbert has no suspicion. He comes home believing he simply fell in with Clarriker by good fortune.
How is Miss Skiffins physically described?
She has a "wooden appearance," wears an orange dress that makes her figure look like a boy's kite, and conspicuously green gloves that she keeps on all evening as a sign of company.
What is the Aged P.'s former profession?
He worked in warehousing, first in Liverpool and then in London. His increasing deafness led his son Wemmick to enter the law and take charge of him.
Who is Miss Skiffins's brother and what does he do?
Her brother, referred to simply as Skiffins, is an accountant and agent. He conducts the financial negotiation that sets Herbert up with Clarriker.
What does Wemmick mean when he says helping Pip "brushes away" the Newgate cobwebs?
He means that doing something generous and humane in his private capacity cleanses him of the moral grime accumulated from working in the criminal justice system at Jaggers's office.
How does Pip react when Herbert shares news of his position at Clarriker's?
Pip struggles to restrain tears of triumph while listening, and that night he cries in bed from joy, feeling his expectations have finally done some genuine good.
What moral turning point does Chapter 37 represent for Pip?
It marks Pip's first truly selfless act since receiving his fortune. By helping Herbert anonymously, he uses his wealth for genuine good rather than social climbing or self-aggrandizement.
How does Pip's secret help for Herbert mirror his own situation?
Pip becomes a hidden benefactor for Herbert, just as an unknown patron has secretly funded Pip's own expectations. Both arrangements operate through intermediaries and strict anonymity.
What does Chapter 37 suggest about the relationship between money and happiness?
Pip discovers that his fortune brings him the most happiness when used generously for someone else. Seeing Herbert's joy is the first time Pip feels his expectations have truly been worthwhile.
Why is Pip's insistence on anonymity significant?
It proves his motives are genuinely selfless, not about enhancing his reputation. Unlike most of his behavior in London, this act is driven by pure affection and gratitude rather than social ambition.
What dramatic irony operates throughout the second half of Chapter 37?
Readers know that Herbert's wonderful new opportunity at Clarriker's is entirely Pip's doing, while Herbert believes it happened by pure chance and good fortune.
How does Dickens use the Castle setting symbolically?
The Castle represents a space where authentic human feeling can exist, separated by a moat from the dehumanizing professional world. Pip must come to Walworth to access Wemmick's genuine, compassionate self.
What is the comic significance of Wemmick's arm "straying from the path of virtue"?
Pip describes Wemmick repeatedly sneaking his arm around Miss Skiffins, who calmly removes it each time. The metaphor of the "path of virtue" adds mock-moral grandeur to a tender, funny courtship scene.
What does the foreshadowing at the chapter's end signal?
Pip announces that "a great event" and "the turning point of my life" is approaching but defers it for one chapter about Estella, building suspense for the major revelations to come.
What does Pip mean by seeking Wemmick's "Walworth sentiments"?
He wants Wemmick's personal, humane opinions rather than the cold professional advice he would give at Jaggers's office in Little Britain. "Walworth sentiments" refers to the private self Wemmick expresses only at home.
What is "portable property" as used in this chapter?
It refers to movable valuables like jewelry or small possessions of monetary worth. Pip judges Miss Skiffins to "stand possessed of portable property," echoing Wemmick's habitual interest in such assets.
What does Wemmick say when Pip reveals his plan to help Herbert?
After a pause, Wemmick says with a kind of start: "Well you know, Mr Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is devilish good of you."
How does the chapter end regarding Pip's emotional state?
Pip says: "I did really cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody." This is the first time his fortune brings him genuine emotional fulfillment.