Mrs. Joe

"knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me" (Dickens, 6).

At the time that this book was written, as well as now, women were usually the victims of beatings, not the givers. Mrs. Joe is also Pips unnatural mother. Dickens has her beating the men in her family to help support the fact that she plays an unnatural role in Pips life.