page_title: John Wemmick
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: John Wemmick / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Great Expectations, Wemmick and his aged father, The Aged P., by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Français&#160;: Les Grandes Espérances, Wemmick et son vieux lère, le Vieux P., par Sol Eytinge, Jr.
context_page_description: John Wemmick is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations. He is Mr Jaggers's clerk and the protagonist Pip's friend. Some scholars consider him to be the "most modern man in the book". Additionally, Wemmick is noted as one of Dickens's "most successful" split characters, insofar as Wemmick's character represents an exploration of the "relationship between public and private spheres in a divided existence".
context_section_description: Wemmick owns a house in Walworth which is modelled as a castle, complete with a drawbridge, cannon and moat. Wemmick feels protected from the harsh realities of his profession by his house. As Wemmick tells Pip, "the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me." He lives with his father, who is referred to as "The Aged Parent", "The Aged P.", or simply "The Aged", a deaf man. Wemmick's ingenuity is seen in ways to communicate with his father, as when he returns from work a tile appears reading "John", signaling his father to lower the drawbridge. Every evening at 9 PM Wemmick fires a cannon known as "The Stinger", which is the only object the Aged Parent has the ability to hear.
  He is engaged to marry Miss Skiffins, a source of joy in his life. His behaviour with Miss Skiffins is another indication of Wemmick's split character status. In his personal life Wemmick, for the first time, also reveals a "sexuality which Dickens comically depicts in his relationship with the brightly apparelled but wooden Miss Skiffins." Pip approves of Wemmick's behaviour around Miss Skiffins, insofar as it humanizes him. This is contrasted with Pip's observation of Wemmick's behaviour in the presence of Jaggers, which he compares to his behaviour around Miss Skiffins by saying "there were twin Wemmicks and this was the wrong one."
caption: Mr. Wemmick and "The Aged P.", illustration by Sol Eytinge Jr.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2011:08:22 11:29:11", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.6.8", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "202", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "350", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7071", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1250", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536"}