Orlick

Orlick is a former worker at Joe Gargery’s forge whose resentment develops into a sustained campaign against Pip and those close to him. After taking a gatekeeper’s post at Miss Havisham’s house, he uses his access and knowledge to watch Pip, stalk Biddy, and eventually lure Pip into an attempted murder. His late revelations link him to the attack on Pip’s sister and to the leg-iron associated with the escaped convict, while his arrest for a separate burglary finally removes him from the story’s immediate threats.

Identity and Background

Orlick first reappears in the narrative as the unexpected gatekeeper at Miss Havisham’s house. Pip recognizes him in sober grey clothes, a striking change from his former place at Joe Gargery’s forge. Orlick confirms that he has left the forge, and explains that he was recommended for the gatekeeping position because the property needed protection from the people going in and out. The work, he says, is easier than bellowsing and hammering.

The new job gives Orlick a room just inside the side door, with a small window facing the courtyard, keys hanging on the wall, and a bed tucked into a recess. A loaded gun with a brass-bound stock rests above the mantelpiece. The cramped room and weapon make his role more than a simple change of employment: he is installed as a guard at a house regarded as vulnerable, and possesses the means to threaten visitors. Later, Pip’s recollection of the same gun during his confrontation with Orlick confirms that it is not merely part of the room’s furnishings.

Resentment and the Earlier Attack

Orlick’s account of his hostility is rooted in what he regards as an unequal treatment of himself and Pip. During the final confrontation, he blames Pip for being favored while Orlick was bullied and beaten. He insists that Pip is responsible for what happened to him and presents revenge as the answer to that perceived injustice. His grievance does not excuse his violence, but it explains the personal logic he gives to a hatred he has maintained for years.

Orlick admits that he attacked Pip’s sister from behind and left her for dead. He says he might have killed her if a limekiln had been nearby, and explicitly insists that although he carried out the attack, Pip was to blame for it. His confession retrospectively identifies the assailant in the earlier assault and exposes the danger that has been present within the family’s history. The attack is not an isolated burst of anger in his telling: he later says that he had wanted Pip dead since Pip attended his sister’s burial.

Watching and Pursuing Pip and Biddy

After leaving the forge, Orlick remains connected to the places and people Pip returns to. When Pip asks Biddy what became of him, she suspects from the color of his clothes that he is working in the quarries. She has seen him near a dark tree in the lane on the night Pip’s sister died, and again more recently. On the later occasion, he leaves before Pip can confront him. Biddy restrains Pip from running after him, trusting that Orlick has already gone.

Pip is angered to learn that Biddy is still being followed and says that he will spend money or effort to drive Orlick out of the country. Biddy redirects the conversation toward Joe’s affection and steadfastness, but Pip’s response makes clear that Orlick’s pursuit has revived his indignation and his determination to protect the people he loves. The threat persists despite Orlick’s absence from the forge: he can appear near the lane without warning, then disappear before anyone can act.

Orlick also keeps Pip under observation. He says that he has looked for a safe opportunity to attack him and has watched to learn his movements. He claims to have taken up with new companions and new masters, some of whom write letters for him in many different hands. This account suggests a criminal network and a capacity for concealment, while his emphasis on tracking Pip’s comings and goings makes clear that the eventual attack has been prepared rather than improvised.

The Attack and Orlick’s Revelations

Orlick’s plan culminates when Pip enters an old sluice-house on the marshes, where a candle is burning. As Pip stands just inside the doorway, Orlick throws a running noose over his head from behind and binds him to a ladder. After striking a light, Orlick is revealed in the room. The setting isolates Pip, and Orlick makes his intention explicit: he wants to carry out the attack himself because, as he says, one person keeps a secret better than two.

The brass-bound gun from Miss Havisham’s gatekeeper’s room appears again in Orlick’s hands. He uses it to threaten Pip while forcing him to listen to his accusations and disclosures. Orlick identifies himself as the person who had previously caused Pip to tumble on the stairs, and explains that he was there because he had been driven away from the area’s easier means of earning a living. The confession binds together earlier unexplained danger, his personal resentment, and his watch on Pip.

Orlick further claims that he learned Pip’s uncle, Provis, had once worn the leg-iron Orlick had picked up and filed asunder years earlier. He says he kept the broken iron until he used it in the attack on Pip’s sister. That revelation links Orlick to a significant object in the history of Pip’s family and to the wider criminal past surrounding the escaped convict. His account is offered by a would-be murderer and should be understood as his own version of events; its force in the scene lies in how it exposes the extent of his surveillance and the depth of his grievance.

Escape, Arrest, and Narrative Role

Pip does not escape by overpowering Orlick. Bound to the ladder and unable to move freely, he calls out and struggles with the limited movement available to him. Other people rush into the sluice-house in response. Orlick breaks free from their struggle, vaults over the table, and flees into the night, leaving Pip alive. Trabb’s boy is among those who reach Pip afterward.

Orlick’s flight does not end his criminal activity. During Pip’s recovery, Joe reports that Orlick has broken into Pumblechook’s house, taken the till, cash-box, and other provisions, and assaulted and tied up the owner. Pumblechook recognizes him, and Orlick is held in the county jail. This later arrest gives a definite consequence to his return to crime, though the evidence does not describe what happens to him after imprisonment.

Orlick functions as a recurring threat whose appearances turn past suspicions into disclosed facts. The gatekeeper’s post places him at the threshold of Miss Havisham’s house; his visits near Biddy and his surveillance of Pip make him a continuing danger beyond that setting. In the sluice-house, he supplies the connection between the attack on Pip’s sister, the earlier stair incident, and the leg-iron, but his self-justifying blame of Pip sharply contrasts with the deliberate violence he confesses. His final arrest resolves the immediate pursuit without transforming his professed grievance or undoing the damage he has already caused.