CHAPTER 7 Practice Quiz — Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: CHAPTER 7
What does Pip write to Joe in Chapter 7, and how does Joe react?
Pip laboriously prints a misspelled letter on a slate. Joe is amazed and calls Pip a scholar, though the letter is nearly illegible.
What does Pip discover about Joe's literacy when he asks Joe to read his letter?
Joe can only recognize the letters J and O, spelling out his own name. He cannot read anything else in the letter.
Why did Joe never attend school as a child?
His alcoholic father beat Joe and his mother. Whenever they ran away so Joe could attend school, his father tracked them down and brought them home.
What happened to Joe's parents?
His father died of an apoplectic fit ("purple leptic fit"), and his mother, already in poor health from years of hardship, died shortly after.
Why does Joe say he married Mrs. Joe and took Pip in?
Joe says when he proposed to Mrs. Joe, he told her to "bring the poor little child" because "there's room for him at the forge." He wanted to give Pip a home.
What announcement does Mrs. Joe bring home at the end of Chapter 7?
Miss Havisham, a wealthy recluse, wants Pip to come to her house to play. Uncle Pumblechook will take Pip there the next morning.
How is Pip prepared for his visit to Miss Havisham's?
Mrs. Joe scrubs him roughly, puts him in stiff clean clothes, and hands him over to Uncle Pumblechook, who lectures him about gratitude.
Who is Biddy, and what role does she play in Chapter 7?
Biddy is Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter, an orphan like Pip. She manages the small shop and becomes Pip's most effective teacher, helping him learn to read and write.
What is Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's teaching method?
She has no teaching method at all. She sleeps through the evening school sessions while students pay twopence per week to watch her do it.
What does Joe reveal about his character when discussing his father?
Despite being beaten regularly, Joe insists his father "were that good in his hart," showing Joe's extraordinary capacity for forgiveness and his refusal to speak ill of the dead.
Why does Joe call Mrs. Joe a "master-mind" and a "Buster"?
He means she dominates the household completely. "Master-mind" is his term for her controlling intelligence, and "Buster" describes her temper during rampages.
How does Uncle Pumblechook become involved in the Miss Havisham arrangement?
Pumblechook is a tenant of Miss Havisham's and pays her rent. When she asked him if he knew of a boy to come play at her house, he recommended Pip.
How does Chapter 7 develop the theme of education and social class?
The chapter shows how the lower classes are denied education through the useless school, Joe's illiteracy from abuse, and Mrs. Joe's opposition to Joe learning "for fear as I might rise."
What does Joe's explanation about enduring Mrs. Joe reveal about the theme of domestic suffering?
Joe connects his tolerance of Mrs. Joe's behavior to watching his mother "drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart." He would rather suffer himself than risk mistreating a woman.
How does the Miss Havisham summons introduce the theme of social ambition?
Mrs. Joe's excitement that "this boy's fortune may be made" reveals her desire for Pip to rise in class, launching the social mobility theme that drives the rest of the novel.
What new feeling does Pip develop toward Joe by the end of their fireside conversation?
Pip dates "a new admiration of Joe from that night" and begins consciously "looking up to Joe in my heart," recognizing Joe's moral stature despite his lack of education.
What metaphors does Pip use to describe learning the alphabet and numbers?
He describes the alphabet as a "bramble-bush" that scratched and worried him, and the nine figures as "thieves" that disguised themselves to baffle recognition.
How does Dickens use humor and irony in the description of Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's school?
The school is absurd: the teacher sleeps through lessons, students pay to watch her sleep, and the only "examination" is Mr. Wopsle reciting Shakespeare — a comic critique of Victorian education.
What is the effect of Joe's dialect and malapropisms in Chapter 7?
Words like "wigour," "onmerciful," "tremenjous," and "purple leptic fit" authenticate Joe's working-class speech while creating humor and pathos simultaneously.
What does Joe mean when he says Mrs. Joe is "given to government"?
He means she is inclined to governing or controlling others — specifically, she rules over both Joe and Pip in the household.
What does "Pompeyed" (or "pampered") mean as Mrs. Joe uses it?
Mrs. Joe's malapropism for "pampered" — she uses it to mean spoiled or indulged. Pip interprets her invented word and translates it for the reader.
Who says "Ever the best of friends; an't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap!" and in what context?
Joe says this after Pip breaks down crying upon hearing that Joe insisted on taking Pip in when he married Mrs. Joe. Joe drops the poker to hug Pip.
What epitaph did Joe compose for his father's tombstone, and was it ever used?
"Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart." It was never inscribed because "poetry costs money" and the funds were needed for Joe's ailing mother.