When Pip meets Miss Havisham Dickens describes what she is wearing; “She was dressed in rich materials- satin, and lace, and silks-all white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependant from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Dressed less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had one shoe on.” This implies that in her mind the clock stopped when she found out that she had been jilted, her life stopped at that moment. Her dress used to be white, a colour of innocence and life. Yellow represents death and decay like old teeth.
This statement, “But I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.” tells us that she was jilted a long time ago when she was younger, she hadn’t changed her clothes or touched anything in the room, and everything is in the same place as it was years ago. We get the impression from this passage that seeing Miss Havisham reminds him of the scariest thing he has ever seen; “Now waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me.” The quote, “She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it.” suggests that Miss Havisham is boasting about her broken heart as if she should be proud about it.
“Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing table, and finally at herself in the looking-glass.” This tells us that she looks in the mirror to remind herself of old times, when she was young. This also tells us that Miss Havisham might be self-conscious even though she has not changed her clothes for years. She was once young and full of life, now she is old and stiff, looking at what she has become.
The quote, “Well? You can break his heart,” tells us that Miss Havisham wants Estella to cause Pip pain by breaking his heart. Miss Havisham wants revenge on men because her husband-to-be left her. “As Estella dealt the cards, I lanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white now yellow, had never been worn.” This passage suggests that Miss Havisham is trying to keep the moment of when he husband-to-be stood her up.
“Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or long veil so like a shroud. So she sat, corpse-like, as we played cards.” This implies that Miss Havisham and the Satis house are both old and almost dead, there is no life left in them, just dust and old furniture from the wedding.
Miss Havisham is able to manipulate Pip’s feelings because of the way he feels about Estella, “She says many hard things about you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?” Miss Havisham is trying to draw out Pip’s feeling so that she can break his heart by using Estella to crush his spirit and make him feel useless.
At the end of the episode I think Pip is feeling a lot of emotions; anger, love, sadness, but he is also confused. He does not know what to make of his first visit to the Satis house.
