Pip rescues Miss Havisham from the fire

Pip rescues Miss Havisham from the fire in a sudden reversal at Satis House: the man who has long carried the emotional consequences of her influence acts to save her when her bridal dress catches fire. Miss Havisham survives, though seriously injured, and Pip’s hands are burned in the rescue.

The Fire at Satis House

After leaving the brewery by the garden door, Pip looks back and briefly imagines Miss Havisham hanging from a beam, a childhood association that revives with unusual force. Uneasy at the image, he chooses to go upstairs and make sure she is safe rather than leave without checking. When he looks into her room, she is seated by the fire with her back to him. As he begins to withdraw, her clothes ignite; she runs toward him with flames around her.

The Rescue

Pip acts before he can fully register what he is doing. He removes his double-caped great-coat and the second coat he is carrying, covers Miss Havisham, and brings down the great cloth from the table to smother the fire. The struggle leaves both on the floor. The cloth also pulls down the accumulated debris on the table, while servants rush into the room. By the time Pip understands what has happened, the flames are out and the remains of the bridal dress are falling around them.

Pip continues to hold Miss Havisham down until help arrives, afraid that releasing her might allow the fire to flare again. She is unconscious, and he is reluctant to have her moved or touched before assistance comes. Only when the surgeon arrives does Pip realize that both his hands are burned; he had not noticed the pain during the rescue.

Injuries and Aftermath

The surgeon judges Miss Havisham’s injuries serious but not, by themselves, hopeless. The greater danger is the shock. On the surgeon’s instructions, her bed is brought into the room and placed on the great table so her injuries can be treated. When Pip sees her again, she lies where he had once seen her strike her stick and heard her say she would lie one day.

Although her dress has been entirely burned, Miss Havisham retains something of her former bridal appearance. White cotton-wool and a sheet cover her to the throat, leaving her still associated with the wedding clothes that defined her suspended life. The fire changes those clothes from the setting of her arrested mourning into the immediate cause of a crisis from which Pip has to save her.

Significance

The rescue reverses the emotional direction of Pip’s connection with Miss Havisham. He does not act from the resentment and repugnance that have shaped his response to the history of his expectations; faced with her danger, he instinctively tries to preserve her life. The scene also brings the image of the old bridal dress to a literal end: it is no longer merely a relic of the past but a burning danger, extinguished through Pip’s coats and the tablecloth. The survival of Miss Havisham, alongside the destruction of her dress and Pip’s burns, makes the rescue a turning point rather than a simple restoration of the room’s former order.