Plot Summary
Chapter 55 opens with the aftermath of Magwitch's capture. He is taken before the Police Court but cannot be immediately committed for trial because the only witness who can formally identify him — an officer from the prison-ship — must be sent for. Compeyson is dead, his body found miles downstream, identifiable only by the contents of his pockets. Among Compeyson's papers are notes detailing Magwitch's assets in New South Wales, suggesting the drowned informer had hoped to profit from the forfeiture of Magwitch's wealth. Pip consults Mr. Jaggers, who confirms that the Crown will almost certainly seize all of Magwitch's property; Pip has no legal claim and resolves never to pursue one. After three days, the prison-ship witness arrives, the case is easily proved, and Magwitch is committed to stand trial at the next Sessions.
Herbert then announces that he must depart for Cairo to pursue his partnership opportunity, and he makes Pip a generous offer: come to Egypt and join the firm as a clerk, with the prospect of eventually becoming a partner. Clara, Herbert's fiancée, adds her own warm invitation. Pip is deeply moved but cannot yet commit, asking for two or three months to decide. Herbert agrees and departs at the end of the week. Pip sees him off on the mail coach and returns to his lonely lodgings.
On the stairs, Pip encounters Wemmick, who explains that Compeyson had infiltrated much of Mr. Jaggers's business network, and that his intelligence about Magwitch's return made the attempted escape almost impossible to pull off. Wemmick then invites Pip on a mysterious Monday morning walk. The outing leads to Wemmick's surprise wedding to Miss Skiffins at a church near Camberwell Green. Wemmick feigns spontaneity at every turn — pretending to discover the church, the gloves, the ring — while Pip serves as best man and the Aged P. gives the bride away in a scene of warm comedy. Afterward, Wemmick asks Pip to keep the wedding a strict "Walworth sentiment," not to be mentioned at Mr. Jaggers's office in Little Britain.
Character Development
This chapter marks a turning point in Pip's maturation. He accepts without bitterness that Magwitch's fortune will be forfeited, demonstrating that he has shed the materialism that once defined him. His willingness to consider Herbert's offer of a clerkship — a position far below the status of a gentleman — shows how completely his values have shifted from wealth and social position toward loyalty and honest work. Herbert, too, has grown from the cheerful but impractical young man of earlier chapters into someone capable of managing a business and offering genuine support.
Wemmick reveals new emotional depth. His carefully staged "surprise" wedding is both humorous and touching, showing a man who is deeply sentimental at home but determined to protect his private life from the cold professional world of Jaggers's office. The Aged P., beaming amiably and confused about the ceremony, adds tenderness to the scene.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter develops several central themes of the novel. The separation of public and private life reaches its comic peak in Wemmick's elaborate pretense that his wedding is an accidental discovery. Loyalty and friendship are foregrounded through Herbert's selfless offer, Clara's warmth, and Wemmick's genuine concern for Pip. The futility of wealth is underscored by the forfeiture of Magwitch's property — the fortune that was supposed to make Pip a gentleman is now meaningless, while the relationships Pip has cultivated prove to be his true inheritance. The motif of home and homelessness recurs as Pip reflects that his lodgings are "now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere."
Literary Devices
employs dramatic irony throughout Wemmick's wedding sequence: the reader, like Pip, quickly grasps that the "walk" is a wedding procession, but Wemmick maintains his charade with deadpan exclamations — "Halloa! Here's a church!" and "Halloa! Here's a ring!" This sustained comic irony provides welcome relief after the dark events of Magwitch's trial. Contrast structures the chapter at every level: the grim legal proceedings versus the joyful wedding, Pip's loneliness versus Wemmick's domestic happiness, and Wemmick's warm Walworth self versus his cold Little Britain persona. Dickens also uses simile memorably when describing Mrs. Wemmick sitting "in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case," a vivid image that captures both her upright posture and her newfound willingness to be embraced. The chapter's first-person retrospective narration allows the older Pip to inject a note of melancholy even into happy scenes, as when he hints at "a vague something lingering in my thoughts" — foreshadowing the novel's eventual resolution.