Pip's adventures with nine thieves
Chapter 7 of Great Expectations gives us an insight into the pedagogical problems that face our primary education system. Pip is trying to learn to read and write with Biddy. He has been attempting to decipher alphabet and numbers. Some letters and combinations seem almost impossible for him. The nine thieves are nine numbere. He imagines them as troublesome little thieves. Dickens is making a joke out of Pip's struggle with literacy. To an adult reader, the letters are perfectly ordinary; to Pip they are mysterious marks that refuse to behave. There is also an important contrast here: Pip can observe the world extremely well -- people, objects, voices and gestures. Reading and writing are artificial skills that he has not yet mastered. Dickens presents literacy from the child's point of view. Pip is beginning to move from an oral experiential world into the world of books, schooling, and social advancement. Pip can understand compli...