Student Question
What are key quotes for Orlick in Great Expectations?
Quick answer:
Key quotes for Orlick in Great Expectations highlight his sullen and violent nature. He complains about unfair treatment, threatening Pip with a red-hot bar: "Orlick plunged at the furnace...as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood." He rudely addresses Mrs. Joe: "You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery." His malicious intent is clear in Chapter 53: "Old Orlick's a match for you and know'd you'd come to-night!"
In Great Expectations, Orlick is initially described as surly and morose, and he demonstrates these qualities every time he speaks. He has a perpetual sense of grievance, and as soon as he is introduced into the narrative, he begins complaining to Joe of unfair treatment, saying that he should have a half-holiday if Pip has one. When Joe is evasive, Orlick demonstrates his capacity for sullen violence:
Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,—as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood.
Orlick, unlike Joe and Pip, seems to be quite unafraid of Mrs. Joe and does not hesitate to speak to her roughly:
"You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery," growled the...
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journeyman. "If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un."
Orlick uses the conventional forms of address, calling Pip "young master," but he is always rude and disrespectful in what he actually says. He also has a sullen sense of humor, which involves responding to the literal meaning of what other people say, rather than to their obvious intention. This is demonstrated when he replies ill-naturedly to Pip's questions at Miss Havisham's house:
"How did you come here?"
"I come here," he retorted, "on my legs. I had my box brought alongside me in a barrow."
"Are you here for good?"
"I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose?"
For most of the narrative, the evil in Old Orlick is barely restrained. In chapter 53, however, he finally shows his true maleficence:
In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I turned my face aside to save it from the flame.
"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick has been for you."
This is the Orlick the reader remembers, in all his vengeful, murderous hatred.