How Dickens presents Herbert Pocket, and how the character develops across the text: the cheerful friend who shows Pip what a true gentleman is, and whom Pip secretly helps.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'Come and fight', 'Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking', 'A capitalist,—an Insurer of Ships', 'I am looking about me', 'no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner', 'Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham', 'It was the only good thing I had done', 'within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co.'.
Context: the gentleman as a matter of conduct rather than birth or wealth.
Herbert as a foil to Drummle and to Pip, and his loyalty when Magwitch returns.
OCR's question on this novel is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the novel elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the novel, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts when it is relevant to the question, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
