“It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.” (56).
Dickens takes the world of an adult, and scales it down to a child’s world using a rocking-horse as the scale. This object is an unusual choice to use as a scale, but it is appropriate to use because of its connections to children. A rocking-horse symbolizes youth and innocence, and provides an image of a small boy naïve to the world. Pip is both young and innocent, and in the beginning of the novel, he is naïve.
Photo Credit: http://www.rocking-horses.net/images/wooden-rocking-horse.jpg
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