biddy

• “wisest of girls”


  superlative - Biddy acts as a didactic moral guide to Pip
• “do you want to be a gentleman to spite her or to win her over?”


  thoughtful interrogative - Biddy acts as Pip’s moral compass
• “O, I wouldn’t if i was you!”


  exclamation - Biddy’s antithetical approach to social mobility, she is aware of the lack of correlation between wealth and moral compass
• “don’t you think you are happier as you are?”


  interrogative foreshadows Pip’s renouncement of his family post social mobility
• “comfortable hand, roughened by work”


  Dickens uses a motif of hands to indicate social class
• “her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing”


  Biddy acts as a foil to Estella’s pristine beauty
• “very pretty and very good” vs “very pretty and very proud”


  Biddy parallels Estella, mirroring how Pip constantly compares the two because he is unsatisfied with Biddy