CHAPTER 40 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 40
What cover story does Pip create for Magwitch's presence in his chambers?
Pip tells his servants that Magwitch is his uncle who has unexpectedly come from the country.
What does Pip discover on the staircase while going to fetch a light?
He stumbles over a man crouching in a corner, who silently evades him and disappears before the watchman can find him.
What alias does Magwitch use?
He uses the name Provis, which he assumed while aboard ship.
What does the watchman reveal about the person who accompanied Magwitch through the gate?
A "working person" in dust-coloured clothes under a dark coat entered the gate at the same time as Magwitch and followed the same route.
What does Pip do to address Magwitch's safety after breakfast?
He secures lodgings for Magwitch at a house in Essex Street near the Temple, and buys new clothes to change his appearance.
What does Mr. Jaggers confirm when Pip visits him?
Jaggers confirms that Abel Magwitch is Pip's sole benefactor, not Miss Havisham, though he is careful to maintain legal deniability.
What happens when Herbert returns at the end of the chapter?
Magwitch produces a pocket Bible and forces Herbert to swear an oath of secrecy before Pip can share the full truth about his benefactor.
What is Magwitch's real full name as revealed in this chapter?
His real name is Abel Magwitch — "Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel."
How does Pip describe Magwitch's eating habits?
Pip says Magwitch ate in a "ravenous way" and looked "terribly like a hungry old dog," turning his head sideways to bring his strongest teeth to bear on the food.
What phrase does Jaggers repeatedly use to maintain legal deniability about Magwitch?
He repeatedly adds "in New South Wales" whenever mentioning Magwitch, acknowledging the facts while denying knowledge of Magwitch's return to England.
What does Magwitch say when asked what he was brought up to be?
He answers "A warmint, dear boy," using the word as if it denoted a legitimate profession.
How does Magwitch express his pride in Pip?
He dangles Pip's hands in his while smoking his pipe and declares, "And this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine One!"
How does Chapter 40 challenge the idea that class can be acquired through money?
Magwitch's convict manners prove impossible to disguise despite new clothes, and Pip's own gentility is revealed as hollow since it was funded by a convict — showing class cannot simply be bought.
What is the creator-creature reversal in Chapter 40?
Magwitch sees himself as the proud creator of a gentleman, but Pip feels like a creature haunted by his maker — the opposite of Frankenstein, where the creator flees the creation.
How does the chapter explore the theme of disillusionment?
Pip's long-held belief that Miss Havisham was his benefactress collapses entirely when Jaggers confirms Magwitch as the sole source, destroying Pip's romantic expectations about Estella.
What does Magwitch's vision of gentlemanly life reveal about class?
His fixation on horses, servants, and spending money "like a gentleman" shows he equates class with material display, exposing a superficial view that mirrors Pip's own shallow values.
What literary device does Dickens use through Jaggers's repeated phrase "in New South Wales"?
Dramatic irony — Jaggers clearly knows Magwitch has returned to England but uses the geographic qualifier to protect himself legally while communicating the truth to Pip.
How does Dickens use pathetic fallacy in Chapter 40?
The "wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue" mirrors Pip's emotional despair and confusion after learning the truth about his benefactor.
What is the effect of comparing powder on Magwitch to "rouge upon the dead"?
This simile suggests that the disguise is grotesquely futile — like applying cosmetics to a corpse, the powder only makes Magwitch's true nature more disturbingly visible.
Identify the allusion Pip makes when he says he was worse off than "the imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature."
This is an allusion to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with Dickens inverting the dynamic so the "creation" (Pip) recoils from his "creator" (Magwitch).
What does "fain" mean when Pip says he "was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge"?
Fain means compelled or obliged — Pip had no choice but to go to the Lodge since he could not find the means of getting a light on his own.
What does Magwitch mean by "expatriated for the term of his natural life"?
It means banished from England for the rest of his life — Magwitch was transported to the penal colonies permanently, and returning is a capital offense.
What are "pannikins" as referenced in the chapter?
Pannikins are small metal drinking cups, typically used in prisons or on ships. Pip observes Magwitch lifting fine glasses as if they were clumsy pannikins, betraying his convict habits.
Who says "Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence" and what does it mean?
Mr. Jaggers says this to Pip after Pip admits he assumed Miss Havisham was his benefactress. It means one should rely on proof rather than appearances — a rebuke of Pip's unfounded assumptions.
What does Pip mean when he says "from head to foot there was Convict in the very grain of the man"?
Pip observes that Magwitch's identity as a convict is so deeply embedded in his behavior and bearing that no change of clothing can conceal it — it is woven into his fundamental nature.