After Pip returns to London and reunites with Herbert at Barnard Inn, where they speak of the desires in their hearts, Pip pulls from his pocket a handbill which Joe has given him, and he and Herbert decide to attend Hamlet in which Mr. Wopsle stars as the Prince of Denmark.
So they "head for Denmark" and upon their arrival, Pip and Herbert find the stage and the performers very amateurish. Also, as the play progresses they realize that some of the performers are even ludicrous: the ghost of King Hamlet must carry the script with him as he cannot remember a single line, the queen is a buxom woman who has everything on her hooked together with chains, Ophelia seems to take forever to die, and Mr. Wopsle's sword fight with Laertes is absurd.
The actors are so amateurish that remarks and shouts are elicited from the audience. One man in the audience makes an incoherent remark to Ophelia which brings laughter from the entire audience. Others shout and call out to Mr. Wopsle as he tries to portray a tragic Hamlet:
Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said “toss up for it;” and quite a Debating Society arose.
The tragedy becomes more of a farce than anything else as the audience shouts at the actors, ridiculing them and the performance. (These actions of the crowd resemble those at Vaudeville performances in the 1880's, a couple decades after the publication of Dickens's novel, at which audiences shouted and threw things at the performers.) Certainly, Pip and Herbert cannot restrain themselves from laughter.
Pip encourages Herbert to hurry after the play is over so that they will not run into Wopsle and embarrass him more, but a man stops them with word that Mr. Waldengarver--Mr. Wopsle's stage name--would like to see them. When the young men reach his dressing room, they are greeted by the former Hamlet:
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.”
In this chapter, Dickens again exemplifies the pretensions of people and the desire of many to aspire to what they perceive as a superior upper class. Chapter XXXI is clearly satirical in its portrayal of Mr. Wopsle, who comes to London and changes his name to Mr. Waldengarver. Believing himself a Shakespearean actor, Mr. Wopsle reveals only that he is a pompous and rank amateur.
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