This first time we hear of Miss Havisham is when she invites pip to go round to her house and to play with Estella. From the first glimpse of seeing his words were, “In an arm chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.” As a reader we get the impression that she isn’t your typical old lady you would expect to find. The way this sentence is worded helps you to picture her sat in her arm chair. As a reader you want to find out why she is sat there the way she is and why Pip refers to her as the strangest lady he had ever seen. Was it because of the way she was sat, the way she was dressed or is it something much deeper that we haven’t found out about her character yet.
From the way Pip talks about Miss Havisham we get the impression that she has changed from what she once was that she may not have been this way all her life. The quotation that supports this is “Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me.” The word “Now” suggests that this character has not always been this way. That she must have had a bad experience during her life that has made her change radically from someone she used to be. The word “waxwork” implies something that is unreal or fake, something that is not completely natural and that has been made because of someone or something. As you come across the mention of the word “skeleton” you immediately connect it with death. It could be perceived as part of her dying or decaying as time has past and finally the word “dark eye” can immediately help you picture this character that has a tired look about them, or could even reflect and old memory. It can also state that she has had enough of living and going throught the ordeal that she has done and that that has inevitably caused her to become evil or has inherited an evil streak in her.
This novel incorporates a variety of punctuation, sentence length and adjectives used to describe the way Pip envisions Miss Havisham and his thoughts on her. “I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone.” This story was originally written for a magazine and needed to create suspense which maybe the reason for Dickens not fully revealing all about Miss Havisham. The reason Dickens used large sentences were because he would have been paid by the word and for the amount that was written. As he was writing for a Victorian audience it would be assumed that they would have greater sympathy for the character of Miss Havisham than we may have in this period of time. But aswell as writing using long sentences he also incorporates short sweet sentences. Well? You can break his heart.” This sentence gets to straight to the point instead of finding ways to make it longer by adding description or incorporating complicated punctuation.
The setting of Miss Havishams house also represents her character in many ways being dark and derelict and that it hadn’t changed since a certain day, that it had been that way for a very long time. “The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling.” This sentence can refer to Miss Havisham being a shrill and a rather cold character that keeps herself to herself. The word seemed suggests that it is only an impression you get of her, but there might be another story behind it all.
Another way in which it refers to her character is when Estella is talking to Pip about the name of the house “Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three – or all one to me – for enough.” The meaning of the house also reflects the way Miss Havisham felt about her old life. That she had had enough and just wanted to leave everything the way it was from the day she got jilted at the altar, all the clocks the house, the brewery and all the other things that she hasn’t changed since that day.
In conclusion my thoughts on the presentation of Miss Havisham is that she is a very troubled old lady, that she has past history she has not managed to resolve it and has chose to react to it in the only way she feels that she can. I feel that she is being portrayed in a way that doesn’t show the real her, and the way she is feeling deep down and in a way that Charles Dickens is making her out to be some old lady who lives in the past because she was ditched at the altar which I feel is completely untrue and that there is another side to her.
