In the Victorian times, it was common that a women should be married, especially a women with a high status such as Miss Havisham. Because Miss Havisham has failed in becoming married may help us to feel sorry for her because people would probably not be very understanding to her suffering.
When pip first meets Miss Havisham he does not look her in the eye, which leads Miss Havisham to say:
“You are not afraid of a women who has not seen daylight since you were born?”
The way in which Miss Havisham says this gives the reader a sense that Miss Havisham is in despair, she has not seen the daylight because she does not feel strong enough to face the world.
This can make the reader feel sympathy for her because not only does she have to deal with the fact that her husband has rejected her, but she also must deal with the comments that people who she would meet in her daily life might make.
A little way through the book we meet the characters of some of Miss Havisham’s family, which after them making various remarks about Miss Havisham’s state of health leads the reader to suspect that her family are only interested in her for her money. The way in which Miss Havisham talks about her family also suggests that she is aware that they only want her for her money Miss Havisham makes a comment about the fact that they will all ‘Feast’ on her, this may metaphorically mean that they will take everything that she has, and will ‘feast’ on her belongings.
Living with the knowledge that your family are only interested in you for your money is another reason why it may be possible for us to feel sympathy for her.
Another reason why we may be able to feel sympathy for Miss Havisham is the fact that she has probably never felt any true affection. The social structure and roles of men and women at the time when Great Expectations was written was that Women should remain Virgins until they were married. Not only were they to keep there virginity but society also demanded that ‘proper’ women kept their distance from men up until they were married. As Miss Havisham has not been married she must therefore not have experienced any true comfort and affection from anyone during her lifetime.
When Pip meets Miss Havisham for the first time, she puts her hand on her chest and asks pip what she is touching, to which pip replies ‘your heart’, Miss Havisham then says ‘broken’ which implies that she has been mentally hurt.
If Miss Havisham feels that she is still in enough emotional pain to tell a complete stranger (pip) that her heart is broken after all the years that have gone by, then she must have been severely hurt on her wedding day when she found out that she had been jilted. This may cause sympathy for Miss Havisham because no one should have to live with that amount of pain for so long.
Although there are many reasons to feel sympathy for Miss Havisham there are also some fairly good reasons not to show any compassion or understanding for her whatsoever.
My first reason for why we should not feel any sympathy towards Miss Havisham is because of the way in which she specifically brought Pip to her house so that he may fall in love with Estella, so that she may break his heart.
We know that her intention was to break pips heart; we know this because when Estella is alarmed at the prospect of playing cars with pip, Miss Havisham convinces her to play with him by saying: “You can break his heart”.
Secondly I feel that it may not be possible to feel sorry for Miss Havisham because of the way in which she is using Estella as a tool to break men’s hearts in her evil game to punish men.
By using Estella in this way she is not only hurting innocent men, but she is also preventing Estella from ever finding true love or experiencing any life of her own. Apart from the fact that Miss Havisham is being very selfish to Estella she is also helping to waste Estella chance in life to use her education, which although may not seem much to people of this generation, for a women in those days to be educated would be extremely rare.
Another reason for us not to feel sorry for Miss Havisham Is because of the way in which she is stereotyping all men. Miss Havisham feels hatred to all men which apart from the fact that this is preventing her chances of ever finding love again, it is also not being fair to decent men out their who may deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Pip is an average boy who has not done anything to offend anybody, but when he is dragged out of a world that he is used to and is familiar with to be shown deliberately by Miss Havisham a world that he can never have ‘the life of a gentleman’ causes pip to feel that he is common and worthless. This is a reason for us not to feel any empathy for Miss Havisham because she has performed a spiteful task such as this knowing full well what effect it may have on Pip.
My final reason why it may not be possible to feel sympathy for Miss Havisham is because of the way in which she is clearly feeling sorry for herself. Miss Havisham’s house has not changed in many years; she still wears her wedding dress and is always in darkness. This shows us that she pities herself and has not changed her appearance or her house because she still doesn’t believe that she has been left by her fiancée. This could make the reader not feel sympathy for her because it is hard for anybody other than her to understand what she must be feeling.
In conclusion, I feel that Miss Havisham is a very misunderstood women and her character can be interpreted in many different ways. In a sense she is hard to feel sympathy for because or the nasty things that she does throughout the book, but on the other hand she can be pitied because she has clearly suffered with her emotions after being ditched by her husband on her wedding day.
So this means that the answer to the question should we feel sorry/sympathy for her is a matter of opinion and is widely open to interpretation.
The next character that I will be looking at is Estella.
Estella is the adopted daughter of Miss Havisham, her real Mother is a Murderer and her father is a convict. She is one of the three main characters in the book and can be very rude to people if she wants to be. Estella is the character who Pip (the main character in the book) falls in love with and is heart broken when she marries another man.
Firstly I shall be looking at the reasons why it would be possible to feel sympathy for Estella.
My first reason is based on the fact that all of her life she has been brought up by her bitter and eccentric adoptive mother Miss Havisham, who has given Estella a very dull and abnormal life, by keeping her in the dark (the house is always only ever lit by candlelight) and by more or less restricting Estella’s social life by being a recluse.
This can make us feel sorry for Estella because she has never really lived her life properly.
My second reason for why we may feel sympathy for Estella is because she is unaware of who her real parents were. (Estella only finds out who her father was near the end of the book) This can help us to feel sorry for Estella because Estella may wonder whether she could have had a better life with her real parents, when us the reader knows all along that she would have had a much worse life if she had not been adopted by Miss Havisham. Which is quite sad when you think that a beautiful women such as Estella would have had a terrible life no matter who she lived with, she could be interpreted as being a ‘doomed’ women.
Continuing with the issue of Estella’s Parents, in my opinion some readers may be able to feel sympathy for Estella because of the fact that she is not being brought up by her natural parents, so readers who have been brought up in a similar situation where they have been brought up in a children’s home, or have lived with foster parents, etc would be able to feel a certain bond with Estella and would be able to sympathise with her situation.
On the instructions of Miss Havisham, who wants revenge for the wrong that was inflicted on her, Estella has to break men’s hearts instead of coming to love them. This can ensue a fondness/sympathetic nature towards Estella, because she is trying to do right by Miss Havisham, therefore putting herself and her happiness second.
My final reason for why we can feel sympathy for Estella is due to the fact that all her life, the only role model she has had is Miss Havisham, who judging by what we know about her is not exactly an ideal mother. Estella has had to live in an old, dusty and decaying mansion alone with Miss Havisham, which has probably made Estella, in some ways very similar, personality wise to Miss Havisham.
As with Miss Havisham, there are a relatively large amount of reasons why we can feel sympathy for Estella, however there are also a few reasons why we should feel no sympathy for Estella whatsoever, I shall explain them in detail below.
Firstly when Estella first meets Pip she makes no effort at all to be civil to him, it is during the same chapter that we get an incline that Estella is not only rude but she is also a snob. We know this because when instructed by Miss Havisham to play cards with Pip by Miss Havisham, Estella says:
“With him! But he is a common labouring boy.”
Secondly, once Estella has been instructed to break pips heart by Miss Havisham, Estella makes no attempt whatsoever to gently make pip fall in love with her, she constantly asks him what he thinks of her, and tries to make Pip cry whenever she can, she also hits Pip across the face a couple of times, in order to make Pip confused about his feelings for her.
Lastly, Estella not only tells Pip that he is common, but she also treats him as though he is common. When pip visits Miss Havisham he is fed, this is one of the occasions when Pip makes reference to how Estella treats him, Pip says:
“Once again I am fed scraps as though I am a dog, Estella does not look at me whilst serving, just like you would a dog.”
This is inexcusable behaviour from Estella so when Pip makes a comment on how he is fed it is very hard indeed to feel any sympathy for her.
In conclusion, I feel that Estella is a very confused character. She is unaware of what she really wants, at the beginning of the book she treats Pip as though he is nothings but as the story comes to a close Estella becomes more and more emotionally attached to Pip, which then ends up in them walking together at the end of the book.
Although at times throughout the book it is extremely hard to feel any kind of sympathy for Estella, if you weigh up her bad points against what she has had to deal with and live with throughout her life it is pretty evenly matched.