Abel Magwitch

Abel Magwitch
Great Expectations character
Abel Magwitch by 'Kyd' (c.1900)
Created by	Charles Dickens
Information
Significant other(s)	Molly
Children	Estella
Nationality	British

Abel Magwitch is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1861 novel, Great Expectations.

Charles Dickens started his story in about 1800, setting his character Abel Magwitch to meet a man called Compeyson at the Epsom Races. Compeyson, Dickens wrote, had been brought up in a boarding school and was a good-looking and set up gentleman. Magwitch, at the same time, began a relationship with a mentally unstable woman named Molly, who later stood trial for murder. Jaggers, her defense attorney, convinced the jury that she was too weak to have strangled the woman. Jaggers was convincing, and Molly was acquitted and became (unknown to Magwitch) Jaggers' maidservant. The story relates that Molly had given birth to Magwitch's daughter, who was about two or three years old at the time of Molly's trial. Molly told Magwitch that she had destroyed the child, and as far as Magwitch knew, his daughter had indeed died.

Later in the novel Magwitch and Compeyson are accused of a serious felony, being charged with putting stolen notes in circulation. Compeyson convinces Magwitch that they should have separate defences and no communication. At the trial, Compeyson appeared as a gentleman, while Magwitch had to sell his clothes to be able to pay for Jaggers. The prosecution placed most of the guilt on Magwitch, who realized that Compeyson had always intended to scapegoat him should they be caught.

Dickens has Compeyson's attorney hammer the point home:

My lord and gentleman, here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the older, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; t'other, the elder, always seen in ‘em and always with his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is the one, and if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?

In the end, Magwitch is condemned to fourteen years imprisonment, while Compeyson receives seven. Magwitch and Compeyson are imprisoned on the same prison ship. Magwitch attempts to kill Compeyson. He is taken to the black hole (a solitary confinement cell) after landing his first punch, but he manages to escape some time around Christmas of 1812.