Monday, January 6, 2014

Can someone please help by explaining this quote from "Great Expectations" to me?“I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and...

Joe is saying that, after having seen how hard his mother always had to work and how much she suffered, "getting no peace" during her life, he is terrified that he himself might do wrong and cause a woman grief by his own life.  He says that rather than be the inadvertent cause of any woman's hardships, he would much rather err in the other direction, even if it causes hardship ("a little ill-conwenience") to himself. 

His own mother's difficult life has left a lasting impression upon Joe.  Because of this, he is extra careful to do everything he can to make the women in his life happy, and to make their burden light.  He says that if he sometimes goes overboard in this respect, letting his sister, for example, boss him around, that is all right with him.  He would much rather be inconvenienced himself than to be the cause of any suffering or dissatisfaction on the part of the women with whom he comes in contact.

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