Great Expectations
Bentley Drummle
The Spider
A sullen, wealthy brute who rivals Pip and marries Estella.
Drummle is rich, proud and lazy. Jaggers calls him the Spider. He studies alongside Pip and has none of Pip's warmth. He is arrogant and treats other people as beneath him.
He is Pip's chief social rival and represents wealth without character. He wins Estella out of pride and spite, not love. He has no interest in anyone's feelings but his own, and he looks at Pip, the former blacksmith's boy, with open contempt. He is the picture of what money can do when it is not matched with decency.
“Out of my way, blacksmith. The lady has promised me the next dance.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Drummle courts Estella at a gathering in Richmond. Pip is furious and asks her how she can stoop to encourage such a man. When Drummle tells Pip to get out of his way, he reveals his contempt.
Estella says at Satis House that she is to marry Drummle. She does. When Pip meets her years later, she is dressed in mourning and says that suffering has changed her.
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