"I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her ."
When Miss Havisham adopted Estella she wanted to save her from the suffering that she had endured, but as she grew older we can infer that Miss Havisham’s goal changed;
"Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more. But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place."
Miss Havisham’s (and Estella’s) involvement with Pip becomes one of the main plot lines throughout the story. At the end of the novel Miss Havisham realizes that she has caused Pip’s heartbreak, like hers had been broken just the same; rather than getting revenge, she actually caused a lot more pain. In the end she asks for the forgiveness of Pip; "Until you spoke to [Estella] the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done?! What have I done?!" What have I done?! What have I done?!"
When Pip left, somehow Miss Havisham’s dress caught fire, Pip goes back and saves her, burning himself in the meantime; she eventually dies. This shows the reader that Pip has changed for the better, and the death of Miss Havisham is a very important factor in showing the reader that he really has changed.
Miss Havisham is a very conflicting character and especially at the time of when she was created by Dickens. Varying from a lot of unmarried women in that era, she was a very powerful woman due to the large fortune she had inherited, and she used this power to make other people do things for her, but she still allowed the jilting situation to ruin her life, so the man who conned her still had power over her. Her character and setting created the gothic part to the story and ‘added atmosphere’ to the plot.
Estella is a very significant character in the story. Estella is introduced as an orphan like Pip, but unlike Pip, Estella was raised to become a lady, and not a blacksmith. Class plays a very important part in the novel, and we are aware that Estella was in the upper class and Pip was in the working class and Dickens’ puts a lot of emphasis on their class difference.
Pip first meets Estella when he visits Satis House for the first time. Estella was very beautiful and captivating and Pip instantly became fascinated by her. Pip’s meeting with Estella marks a crucial moment in his life, as Estella’s beauty and great expectations are very much unlike Pip’s mild life prospects. Estella put down Pip’s ways, and from that stemmed Pip’s thoughts on whether he was really satisfied with his position in life and his values and even his friends.
Pip grew to love Estella, even though he was being warned of how she had been brought up to hate men and avenge Miss Havisham’s disappointment. Even Estella warned Pip that she could not love him or anyone, due to Miss Havisham. Estella’s character made the reader feel sorry for her and the situation Miss Havisham had put her in; throughout the novel she says she has “no heart”. One very interesting quote by Estella shows how Dickens’ use of metaphors can create brilliant effects for portraying characters emotions:
“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .”
“Or,” said Estella, “—which is a nearer case—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .”
“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
Estella says this to Miss Havisham in Chapter 38 when Miss Havisham complained that Estella doesn’t give her any love. She was surprised that her adopted mother would make such an accusation because she deliberately raised her to avoid emotional attachment and to treat those who show love to her with cruelty, and Estella responds with this questioning study of Miss Havisham’s manner. She uses sunlight as a metaphor for love; this is an appropriate metaphor to include in the conversation because Miss Havisham has always refused to go into the sun. Firstly Estella says that it is as if Miss Havisham raised her without ever telling her about sunlight, and then suddenly expected her to understand it without ever being taught. She then thinks of an even better metaphor and then says that it is as if Miss Havisham actually did tell her about sunlight, but also told her that sunlight was her hated enemy, and then reacted with disappointment when Estella did not naturally like the sunlight. Estella concludes this metaphor by reminding Miss Havisham, that it was her who made her how she is, and that Miss Havisham is wholly responsible for her creation. Estella says that both Miss Havisham’s “success” (Estella’s cold heart and cruelty) and her “failure” (Estella’s lack of ability to express her emotions and inability to love) make her how she is. This quotation is important to the character of Estella’s development, because it shows her gradual self-knowledge, which eventually will allow her to accept the past.
I think one of Estella’s roles in the novel is to spark off the change in Pip; when he starts to wonder what he wants in life. She begins to say to him how his ways are wrong; this triggers something in Pip which makes the plot progress. Pip rejects Joe and his former life and eventually reverts back at the end.
In conclusion I think Miss Havisham and Estella have very important roles and functions in this novel. They both are essential to common themes throughout the story: suffering (mostly from Miss Havisham), obsession (Pip with Estella), prejudice (Estella resents Pip for not being refined), envy (Pip envies Estella’s wealth). So for many reasons Estella and Miss Havisham prove crucial to the plot.
