Jaggers the Plotter and the Pretty Child: Masculine Vulnerability to Beauty in Great Expectations

Abstract:

This article examines the role of the criminal lawyer Mr. Jaggers in Great Expectations, arguing that beyond his function as the hidden link between Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch, his masculine vulnerability before the pretty little child who becomes Estella is an essential plot element. Jaggers's decision to save this child from poverty, and perhaps prostitution, characterizes the lawyer as Dickens's main authorial collaborator and key plotter. Jaggers's actions, wholly disclosed in Chapter 51, characterize him thus as a fully rounded minor or supporting character. His motivations to rescue Estella, however, are ambiguous, appearing to be either an example of compassionate chivalry or, in a darker reading, a strategy to control his sexual impulses.