Miss Havisham’s behaviour towards Pip and Estella is controlling and manipulating. When she tells Pip, “Love her, love her, love her”, she does not give Pip a chance to respond and throughout the novel is feeding Pip with manipulative language such as “Is she pretty?” and remarks such as “You want to go home, and never see her again?”. Miss Havisham is consciously brainwashing Pip into loving Estella, without fully realising the consequences on both sides. The language she uses is abrupt, aggressive and intimidating. Dickens use of language makes Miss Havisham appear domineering and powerful. Her actions are controlling because she uses the guilt complex, especially on Pip. Miss Havisham is manipulative because she uses Estella for her own bidding. She manipulates her into seeking revenge on men. She is, to put it simply, teaching her to do something which she is not suited to carry out.
Her reasons for treating Pip the way she does is her hate for the male species of humankind. She has made an unfair decision that just because her husband jilted her that all men and boys are like that. This explains her treatment of Pip.
Miss Havisham treats Estella manipulatively and is very egocentric in her treatment of Estella. She brings her up to be loved: “Hear me Pip, I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved”; but does not rear her to love others. This is clear when Estella says, “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.”
Another perspective on this matter is that this behaviour from Miss Havisham is partly unconscious. In her depression she has been so ill and mentally damaged, from being jilted on her wedding day, that she does think about the consequences of her actions and appears to put a lot of effort, into achieving her aims of breaking Pip’s heart, and ruining Estella’s life due to the fact that she did not let Estella have a loving heart (it is now made of stone!).
In a way, Estella is a clone of Miss Havisham, in that both their hearts appear to be made of stone. Miss Havisham does not believe her heart is made of stone because she says to Pip, “I want to show you I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never believe there is anything human in my heart.
From Pip’s point of view, we learn that he does not think much of Miss Havisham at the beginning of the novel, but that he pities her towards the end of it.
He needs Miss Havisham, although he doesn’t realise it at the beginning. He sees her as inhuman, “witch like”, and feels that Miss Havisham does not treat him very well; that she is unkind, she is bazaar. Pip is also, in a way, in awe of Miss Havisham. He has a lot of respect for this person, maybe because he is used to being under authoritative figures. From Pip’s experience of Miss Havisham, we learn that she is placing him under false pretences for example, that she is his benefactor.
Miss Havisham is very kind to Joe, which in a way is a different perspective altogether on Miss Havisham. She appreciates what he finds difficult, for example, not talking directly to Miss Havisham but instead, through Pip. Both Joe and Miss Havisham are aware of the class difference between themselves, but they both deal with their anxiety in a different way. We learn of Miss Havisham through her anxiety and other feelings expressed by Dickens through dialogue and use of language. Miss Havisham is anxious about not letting onto Pip, by attempting to talk to Joe, her ulterior motive for bringing a chance boy to Satis House.
Dickens uses Miss Havisham’s language to make us feel differently about her. Some readers may interpret Miss Havisham’s behaviour towards Joe as respect and plain good manners. This makes us feel fairly neutral towards Miss Havisham. Others may read her language as a cover up of her real personality.
Joe is anxious and also feels inferior to Miss Havisham. This is illustrated by his communicating to Miss Havisham through Pip.
If anything, Joe is more aware of status which allows us, the reader, to pity Joe and despise Miss Havisham. We pity Joe because we feel sorry for him, but we despise Miss Havisham because we know her true inner feelings that Pip is a chance boy, and the fact that she is being deceptive towards Joe.
In a way, because of Miss Havisham’s respect for Joe, in that she is not laughing him down because of his inferiority to her, pity her for just being kind to him, because usually she is inhuman and cruel. “Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood…”. In this instance we pity her because she is being very kind to Joe, although he is so nervous.
Carol Ann Duffy in her own poem ‘Havisham’ portrays Miss Havisham as a “Spinster”. Duffy describes her to have “dark green pebbles for eyes” and “ropes” as veins on the back of her hands that she could strangle with. Duffy illustrates her as an angry, ranting and raving lunatic who could well just have just escaped from a mental hospital. I don’t personally believe this is what Dickens created her to be.
Miss Havisham does not change through the book, but the way that we, the reader interpret her behaviour, because of other character’s views, does change.
At the beginning of the novel I believe there is no feeling for or towards Miss Havisham, just positive hope that she will be kind in the future.
Towards the middle of the novel, we despise her because we learn of her history through the dialogue with Pip and Herbert Pocket. The reason we despise her when we have heard this conversation is ue to one of Herbert’s comments; “…When she recovered from a bad illness she had, she laid the whole place waste………and she has never since looked upon the sight of day.”
Also, in the middle of the book, Dickens uses scenarios such as when Miss Havisham says “I have never seen sunlight since the day you were born”. This makes us despise her and makes her appear “witch like”. I don’t believe, and this is evident from the novel, that Dickens ever actually describes Miss Havisham using his own opinion. He only uses monologues by Pip and other characters such as Herbert Pocket to influence our view of Miss Havisham.
Towards the end of novel Pip forgives Miss Havisham. For this we tend to pity and sympathise with her. Others would still despise her as they did before, because they believe that as person is not capable of change after leading such a cruel and deceptive life.
To conclude, I believe that Dickens leaves it open to interpretation as to whether the reader despises or pities Miss Havisham.
I personally have no concern for Miss Havisham’s welfare at the beginning of the novel; I despise her in the middle because of her cruel attitude and two-faced personality; and towards the end I pity her because she asks for sincere forgiveness and repeatedly says “What have I done?” and falls at Pip’s knees in remorse. It is clear that she means what she says.
