{"id":950,"date":"2022-10-27T20:18:04","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T20:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=950"},"modified":"2022-10-27T20:18:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T20:18:04","slug":"wemmick-and-his-marxist-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2022\/10\/27\/wemmick-and-his-marxist-castle\/","title":{"rendered":"Wemmick and his Marxist Castle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of Great Expectations<\/i>\u2019 <\/i>numerous Gothic haunts, Wemmick\u2019s castle interests me the most. Unlike its spookier cousins, the castle is a light, almost carefree alternate reality that turns its gothic tropes into parody, and in doing so creates a kind of reverse haunting.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Every aspect of the house which seems to point towards a spooky gothic setting, instead accomplishes the opposite effect. The title of castle is adorable in the context of Pip\u2019s description of it as \u201ca little wooden cottage\u2026the smallest house [He] ever saw\u201d (Dickens, XXV). Other gothic ornaments like the windows are described as queer and sham, and the gothic door is said to be \u201calmost too small to get in at.\u201d The moat is so small that Pip could leap across it, and the battery on top of the cottage is much more a treat for the aged P. than it is any kind of threat to intruders.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

All of these features, and Wemmick\u2019s pride in them, make the man and his home precious to the reader, but that is not the only purpose they serve. As pip moves away from his home and from Joe, the castle is set up as a new positive and wholesome location which promotes manual labor and independence in opposition to the gentility and stasis of statis house. It Haunts Pip in the reverse, rather than reminding him of some trauma or mistake in his past, it provides and suggests to him an alternate, anti industrial and marxist path which, while reminiscent of the forge, is compatible with his new life and station.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By turning his home into a castle, defended from the outside world and supplied by its own gardens and its lone pig, Wemmick subverts the capitalist industrial expectations placed on him by his work. Although he gives himself up to Mr. Jaggers\u2019 business everyday, personality and all, he firmly defends his right to a private life and to control the means of production on his land, despite his bourgeois career. Pip feels the influence of these values and in fact some of the few times we see Pip not idle and engaging in real production, not pointless rowing or banking, are when he toasts sausage and bread in the castle. As small acts as these are, they are still meaningful foils to the complete inaction of Mrs. Havisham and the emptiness of the finches, the grange and the life of the gentleman.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of Great Expectations\u2019 numerous Gothic haunts, Wemmick\u2019s castle interests me the most. Unlike its spookier cousins, the castle is a light, almost carefree alternate reality that turns its gothic tropes into parody, and in doing so creates a kind of reverse haunting.\u00a0 Every aspect of the house which seems to point towards a spooky gothic … Continue reading Wemmick and his Marxist Castle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4708,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}