Student Question
What does Mrs. Joe give Pip for eating his bread too fast in Great Expectations?
Quick answer:
In "Great Expectations," Mrs. Joe gives Pip tar water for eating his bread too fast. This occurs in Chapter 2, where she uses it as both a supposed health remedy and a punishment. Tar water, believed to have medicinal benefits, is administered by Mrs. Joe with a sense of cruelty rather than care, as she also forces Joe to take it despite his careful eating, highlighting her harshness.
The incident occurs in Chapter 2, when Pip is trying to gather together food to give to the convict who threatened him in the graveyard. It was considered unhealthy and dangerous to ‘bolt’ one’s food at this time, so Mrs Joe administers a medicine to Pip which is made of tar water-
Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness.
She appears, however, to use the tar water as much as a punishment as a cure. The fact that she makes Joe take the medicine too, though he was eating carefully throughout, shows there is more cruelty than benevolence in her actions.
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