Birch rods and straws: Reading Great Expectations in modern times.
In chapter 10 of Great Expectations Pip describes the scene of pupils eating apples and putting straws up one another's back. Straw is a familiar word associated with a drinking straw. But Wopsle's great aunt's pupils were living in an entirely different situation. The word has not changed its meaning; its everyday associations have changed. In Dickens's rural England straw was a familiar agricultural material that came from dried stalks of grains such as wheat, oats, or barley. Children could encounter loose pieces of them in ordinary surroundings. Children do this as a joke probably to trickle or irritate each other. Wopsle's great aunt threatens her unruly pupils with birch-rod. She tries to bring order among her pupils who are playing tricks on one another. Birch-rod refers to a bundle of birch twigs bound together. It could deliver a broad stinging punishment. Dickens frequently uses such everyday images to make the material life of his character...