Great Expectations
Abel Magwitch
The convict benefactor
A frightening escaped convict on the marshes who turns out to be the source of Pip's fortune.
Magwitch is first met as a terrifying man in leg-irons who seizes young Pip and demands food and a file. He is rough and fierce, but the boy's kindness reaches him. He never forgets it. He describes himself as someone who has been exploited and punished all his life.
Underneath his rough manners, he is generous, grateful and fiercely loyal, and he does not forget a kindness. He wants to prove that a man like himself can make a gentleman, and he spends years of work in Australia to do it. He calls Pip "dear boy" and means it. His great danger is that he has returned from transportation, which is punishable by death.
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot done it!”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Magwitch is recaptured on the marshes while fighting Compeyson, and protects Pip by taking the blame for the stolen pie. Years later he arrives in Pip's London chambers in a storm, reveals he is the secret benefactor, and proudly says he has made a gentleman of him. Pip is horrified and takes him in under the name Provis.
Pip, Herbert and Startop try to row him to a foreign steamer. Compeyson and the police intercept them, and Magwitch drags Compeyson into the river, where he drowns. Magwitch is condemned in the Old Bailey, and Pip stays by him daily. As he dies, Pip tells him his lost daughter lived and is a lady.
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