Here, the working-class hero, Joe, still smokes the pipe that evokes his place in the world. Consider the moment when the protagonist and narrator, Pip, first receives his "great expectations" and must abandon his blacksmith apprenticeship with Joe to return to the life of an English gentleman. The socially mobile Pip has little respect for "the mean little room from which [he] must soon be separated and raised above, forever", but cannot absolve his feelings of having abandoned Joe and his old blacksmith apprentice class identity (145). ). The next day, when Joe comes to smoke his pipe to discuss Pip's departure, Pip confesses that he "saw some strings of lights from Joe's pipe floating there, and I imagined it was like a blessing from Joe … permeating the air we shared together” (146). ). For Pip, Joe's very essence as a worker is the tobacco smoke that follows him wherever he goes. It is in this capacity as a class designator that tobacco alone is capable of blessing Pip's escape from the working class.