Pumblechook is a character in Great Expectations that didn’t affect Pip much. Actually Pip learned not to act as Pumblechook does and act the opposite way that his humbug uncle does. Pip didn’t think too highly of Pumblechook. As a child, Uncle Pumblechook treated Pip poorly. One Christmas during dinner, Uncle Pumblechook sticks a “Pumblechookian elbow” (p.25) in Pip’s eye, showing that he is to good to worry about other people’s feelings,
especially those in a lower class than he is. Pumblechook was a middle class corn and seed merchant trying to rise to upper class, and Pip realized how his uncle kisses up to rich people and treats the poor, lower-class people, as Pip was when he was a boy, like trash. Pip saw the way Pumblechook was fake and devoted himself not to be like that. When Pip grew up and became a “gentleman,” Pumblechook started flattering him because of his high rank in society, and Pip grasped the fact that Pumblechook was a hypocrite and didn’t want to be like that. So instead of becoming a hypocrite, Pip used his uncle as an example for himself of how not to act. Overall, by Pumblechook’s rotten ways, Pip was influenced to do the opposite of those traits his uncle possesses.