Great Expectations (20-22)

On page 160, the first three paragraphs definitely set the mood of the new setting. When Pip says, “…I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.” as he was referring to the city of London, saying before that Britons thought everything about themselves was the best, including their city. Already it creates a presumption about Britons for the reader as well as for the city.
I also liked the third paragraph on the page, where Pip talks about the coach and driver. I feel it gives a feeling about London because it is the thing taking him there; for example, “…to have been decorated with an old weather-stained pea-green hammer-cloth, moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time.” I also liked the repetition of using the hyphen.
From the middle of page 170 to the middle of page 171, I found what seemed to be repetition again. I found several adjectives describing what Pip saw in the city and what he felt. Pip used, “depreciation,” “depressed,” “disembodied,” dingiest,” dismal,” and dilapidated.” Whether it was intentional or unintentional, I thought it was clever and kept a gloomy effect.
On page 179, in the third paragraph, Herbert Pocket is telling the story of Miss Havisham and quotes his father and says, “no varnish can hide the grain of the wood, and the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.” I agree with that philosophy, thinking of when someone I knew had a scar on her face and in vain tried to cover the scar with makeup, but it just made the scar even more noticeable.
On page 183, Pip says, “It appeared to me that the eggs from which young insurers were hatched were incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the places in which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning.” I do not understand what the simile is supposed to mean, and why the author has Pip say young insurers are hatched from eggs.
I was extremely surprised to find that the young Mr. Pocket turned out to be the pale young gentlemen. That section of the chapters was the most exciting for me. Overall, I found the chapters to be more action than description, which I enjoyed as a change.