4- The Assault on Mrs. Joe

Time passes and working at Joe's forge becomes monotonous for Pip. He still tries to expand his knowledge through reading and writing, and even tries to teach Mr. Joe how to do the same. At the forge, Dodge Orlick, Joe's assistant, makes doing work at the forge only harder for Pip. Orlick is an unpleasant, rude, vicious and hateful person. One day at the forge, Mrs. Joe complains to Orlick about him taking a holiday and the argument quickly escalated into a shouting match. Mrs. Joe calls her husband to defend her honor and Joe quickly ends the argument by beating Orlick in a fight. It was here where Pip truly understood how physically strong Mr. Joe really was, and how it really made up for him being illiterate and crude. Later, Pip ignores Joe's advice and visits Miss Havisham. He learns there that Estella has been sent abroad to learn the ways of a lady. Pip was so attached to Estella that the mere thought of her being somewhere else, and possibly with someone else devestated him. When Pip returns at night, he gets frightened when he sees Orlick's face in the shadows and hears gunshots from the prison-ships. When he returns home, he realizes that Mrs. Joe has been attacked and is now brain-damaged.

The Assault on Mrs. Joe must have been a particularly disturbing for Pip, because she was the last real family that he had left. Although Mrs. Joe wasn't exactly the greatest mother-figure, she still felt a degree of love for her brother. With the attack on Mrs. Joe, Pip's future seemed to be heading downhill, and only a miracle or drastic turn of events could reverse his future...