Mrs. Pocket in Great Expectations

Who is Mrs. Pocket?

Mrs. Pocket is the ostentatious wife of Matthew Pocket who presides, ineffectually, over the chaotic Pocket household. She fixates on social rank and pedigree, frequently claiming imagined dignities (calling herself a granddaughter of some supposed great person) and reacting theatrically to domestic crises. In the chapters where she appears, she offers little practical help; the servants actually run the house and the family’s disorder reflects her complacent inattention. Mrs. Pocket fawns over status-seeking visitors, indulges in grand airs when inconvenienced (for example, over missing needles or the cook’s misconduct), and treats Pip with a mix of sycophancy and petty competitiveness when he is in favour. Her behaviour exposes the Pockets’ dependency on others for order and underlines the gap between their genteel self-image and their real circumstances. She remains more a figure of social comedy than a mover of events, but her affectations shape Pip’s impressions of the household and its values.

Personality

pretentious

At dinner she is obsessed with rank and titles, claiming injured status as a granddaughter of a supposed dignitary when the household faces a crisis.

ornamental

Pip observes Mrs. Pocket as decorative and indifferent to practical matters while servants and nurses actually manage the home.

theatrical

She reacts more with theatrical accusations and airs than with practical solutions when the cook is found drunk and a bundle of butter hidden.

complaining

She frets over missing needles and frames small domestic miseries as affronts to her supposed dignity.

Character arc

Mrs. Pocket’s character remains essentially unchanged from her first appearance to the end of her scenes. She is introduced as a vain, ornamental woman whose chief concern is maintaining an illusion of high social standing; throughout the episodes at the Pocket house she continues to perform that role. When confronted with household disorder—drunken servants, petty thefts, the needs of many children—she responds with theatrical indignation and claims of injured lineage rather than taking effective action. Her behaviour consistently relies on servants (Flopson and Millers), and she cultivates a grand manner that masks the family’s dependence and financial precariousness. Even as the household’s social maneuverings bring visitors like Pip, Drummle, and Estella into closer contact, Mrs. Pocket remains fixated on status and appearance, offering sycophantic hospitality or petty resentment rather than genuine support. The lack of development underscores Dickens’s satirical aim: she exemplifies genteel complacency that resists practical responsibility through to her last appearances.

Relationships

• Matthew Pocket Her husband, a distracted, cultured gentleman whom she complements with ornamental pretension while he shows little practical control.
• Herbert Pocket Her son or close kin in the Pocket household (Herbert is raised there); she is part of the family milieu that influences his upbringing by example of complacent gentility.
• Georgiana A cousin who, along with other relations like Camilla, participates in the household’s fawning social displays toward visitors.
• Flopson One of the nurses/servants who actually manages children and domestic tasks that Mrs. Pocket neglects.
• Millers Another nurse/servant involved in the practical running of the household that Mrs. Pocket leaves to others.
• Pip A guest in the Pocket house whom she flatters and competes with socially, revealing the family’s petty ambitions and attitudes toward his new status.

Why Mrs. Pocket matters

Mrs. Pocket functions as a comic embodiment of the novel’s critique of genteel pretension and social ambition. Her insistence on rank and theatrical indignation expose how appearances and pedigrees can mask incompetence and dependence. In scenes with Pip and other characters she helps dramatize the contrast between genuine usefulness (as seen in servants and in Joe) and the empty manners of the aspiring middle class. By remaining unchanged and largely ineffective, Mrs. Pocket reinforces Dickens’s theme that social advancement without moral or practical substance produces farce and hollowness rather than real improvement.

Chapters with Mrs. Pocket

• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34

More Great Expectations characters

• PipProtagonist
• Joe GargeryMajor character
• Miss HavishamMajor character
• Herbert PocketMajor character
• EstellaMajor character
• Mr. JaggersMajor character
• Mrs. Joe GargeryMinor character
• BiddyMajor character