John Wemmick

In Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, John Wemmick is Mr. Jaggers' clerk and the protagonist Pip's friend.

Occupation

At work, he is hard, cynical, sarcastic, and obsessed with “portable property”; at home in Walworth, he is jovial, wry, and a tender caretaker of his father, who himself is referred to as "The Aged Parent", "The Aged P.” or simply "The Aged". Wemmick is Pip's chief go-between with Jaggers and generally looks after Pip in London.

John Wemmick is a bill collector for the lawyer Mr. Jaggers; the job requires a demanding, uncaring attitude, a personality the working Wemmick takes on. To impress and stay in favour of Mr. Jaggers, he is observed to berate Jaggers' clients with disdain and mistrust. This draws comparisons with Wemmick's personal and home life, which is filled with smiles, cheer, and joy, as he lives happily away from work.

Wemmick was also in many ways a messenger for Mr. Jaggers.

Portable Property

Wemmick would venture to Newgate Prison and speak with prisoners that were either currently being represented by Jaggers, or were already condemned after Jaggers' appointment to them. When Wemmick talks to a prisoner that has been condemned to die, he does his best to take whatever valuable artifacts they may have with them off their hands. This he dubs as their "portable property." An example would be a pair of pigeons that he took from a colonel as a request.

Relation to Pip

At one point in the novel Wemmick advises Pip to take hold of his benefactor's (Magwitch's) "portable property," however noble Pip's intentions are of helping Magwitch, that in case all plans fall through, at least Pip will have his inheritance. After he sent back Magwitch's pocketbook, Pip felt dignified, and not taking another shilling from him, will do no such thing; however, in the end, Pip forfeits all that Magwitch intended for him to have (not to Magwitch's knowledge). It is ironic that when Pip believed Miss Havisham to be his benefactor, he was willing to take all given, even Estella, but upon finding out that the convict from his early years was his proprietor, he would not even take what his proprietor expected and hoped for him. In some ways, this Janus Effect is illustrated all the more through Wemmick's life: one face put on at work, one at home; one face as Pip's arrogant younger self, one as the true gentleman Pip had ever hoped to be. Wemmick's role in this novel may seem like the strangest, but in fact it may very well be a foreshadowing theme of the redemption of Pip's character.

Wemmick is later discovered to be the person that Magwitch, Pip's mysterious benefactor and convict, used to instruct Mr. Jaggers to tell Pip of Magwitch's sponsorship of Pip's education to be a gentleman.

Personal life

Wemmick owns a house which is modeled as a castle, complete with a drawbridge, cannon and moat. He fires his gun at 9 o'clock for the pleasure of his Aged Parent. Wemmick feels protected by his house from the outside cruel and harsh reality that he works with at his job. He is proposed to marry Miss Skiffins who is a great joy in his life. The way he acts with Miss Skiffins is indicative of a second personality, as in the way in which he plays a game of trying to keep his arm around her. Their marriage was quite peculiar in how it was brought about, he made it seem very out of chance and pretended to be surprised at how it happened.