Great Expectations Notes | Objects/Places

marshes: Pip grows up on the marshes and returns there many times when he's older. The rough marshes stand in contrast to the civilized city of London. One of the convicts describes the marshes as: 'A most beastly place: mudbank, mist, swamp, and work' (267).

The Three Jolly Bargemen: The Bargemen is a bar in Pip's village that serves as a meeting place--important news and characters are often discovered here.

Mr. Wopsle's Great Aunt's school: Not much learning takes place here, for the Great Aunt sleeps instead of teaching and all the books are about a century out-of-date. Pip attends the school for years, and only learns what Biddy, the real teacher there, teaches him.

Manor House (or Satis): Once a great mansion with a thriving brewery attached (hence the name 'Satis', a reference to the word 'satisfied'), everything at this house stopped and then began to slide into decay when Miss Havisham was abandoned here on her wedding day. The place is in ruins, full of cobwebs and darkness, by the time Pip makes his first visit to Miss Havisham.

Twenty before nine: Miss Havisham realized she had been stood up at twenty 'til nine on her wedding day. She stopped all the clocks in her house at that precise moment.

The Temple: The second, and more respectable of lodgings into which Pip and Herbert move, in London.

Barnard's Inn: Pip moves into Herbert's place at Barnard's Inn in London, and they live there for several years. Barnard's is quite decrepit and disrespectable, although Pip uses some of his benefactor's money to fancy-up his and Herbert's rooms.

Hammersmith: The suburb where Pip's tutor, Matthew Pocket, and his family, live.

Richmond: The suburb where Estella lives when she moves to London.

Walworth (or Wemmick's Castle): Wemmick has built a very impressive homestead, sort of a miniature castle, in the suburbs. He lives here with his father, the Aged P, and has invented all sorts of novelties and rituals around the house for the Aged P's amusement.

Finches of the Grove: A snobby sort of boy's club that Pip and Herbert join in London. Bentley Drummle is also a Finch, and he and Pip get in an argument over Estella at one of the Finch dinners.

Chink's Basin: A location on the river where Magwitch is to lie in wait until Pip comes to fetch him for their escape. Herbert's fiancé and her father also live in the house at Chink's Basin.

The Blue Boar: An inn in Pip's village where he often stays on his visits home.

London: On the news of his inheritance, Pip travels to London, where his gentlemanly education is to begin. London is most often portrayed as full of suspicious, cutthroat characters, men like Jaggers and his clients. The innocent life of the marshes stands in contrast to life in this city.

wittles: Or 'vittles,' another word for 'food'.