Pip and Herbert have lunch together with the Pocket family, Startop, Drummle, and Mrs. Coiler at the Pockets house in Hammersmith, London.
This lunch scene is a blend of nice moments from the chapter, rather than a specific scene.
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| 1: Belinda Pocket, the mother; 2: Baby Pocket; 3: Drummle; 4: Mrs. Coiler; 5: Pip; 6: Startop; 7: Herbert Pocket; 8: Jane Pocket; 9: Fanny Pocket; 10: Mathew Pocket, the father; 11: Pocket sisters, 12: Joe Pocket, 13: Dog sniffing Belinda's handkerchief; 14: Alick Pocket; 15: Flopson, Millers and the page boy. |
The scene shows a lot of characters: On the very right, sitting enthroned over a dog, Belinda Pocket (1), the mother of Herbert, two brothers, four sisters, one baby, and another one to come, looks absent-mindedly out of the picture. A dog (13) sniffs at the handkerchief she likes so much to let fall to the ground. Despite being such a productive mother, she doesn't really care about the well-being of her children - here, ignoring the baby (3) on her lap almost tumbling off, and putting its eyes out with a nutcracker. She rather spends time talking about her almost-noble ancestry with the almost-noble glutton Drummle (3), who sits to her right, and is
working himself through a glass of champagne, and a piece of cake.
Next to Drummle, Mrs. Coiler (4), the toady neighbour, bores nonchalantly into Pip's (5) past, while he
tries to concentrate on the right company-manner on how to eat cake.
Startop (6) is chewing on a piece of cake, while Herbert (7) pleasantly oversees the chaotic scene, as he's used to it. The seats between them are empty, for the children already got up.
Jane (8) is worried about the careless way, in which her mother dismisses the baby, and tries to make it notice to her father, Mathew Pocket (10), whose arm she is clutching. Latter is split in his attention towards his one daughter, and his other, Fanny (9), whose hand he's inspecting, pointing out that she got
a whitlow.
While the other Pocket sisters (11), whose names I didn't catch, are whispering to themselves (perhaps about the new subtenant, Pip?), Joe (12), "with the hole in the frill", is chasing after a cat, which is hiding under the bambus-bench.
Alick (14) in an obstinate mood is dressed as a pirate. Staying in character, he tries to snatch away the remaining pieces of cake, the servants had left carelessly on the trolley.
At the far left (15), Flopson and Millers, the head-servants, are scolding a "dissipated" page boy, who lost some buttons on the gaming table. Both servants were drawn away from the table in the heat of the action, because one has a cake knife in her left hand, and the other brandishes a tea pot on her right.
For a long time I had some ideas on how to approach this chapter. It should have been a
slanted view from the top, in which every participant of the meal is seated regularly on
a long table, with Mathew Pocket, the Father on top, "lifting himself up" according to Pip, what
I understood as stretching himself. But I found the idea too boring, too overdone. Most of my illustrated scenes revolve around people sitting at tables, and after a while I had to come up
with something new, to make the image more interesting for the viewer, and for me to draw.
I reread the scene, and I noticed, that the children might not have been present at dinner. No illustration is perfect.
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