The Poem Havisham creates images and feelings of death, anger and destruction. Discuss how Duffy communicates this to the reader.

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The Poem Havisham creates images and feelings of death, anger and destruction.

Discuss how Duffy communicates this to the reader.

Duffy’s poem Havisham is based on the character Miss Havisham from the famous novel “Great expectations” by Charles dickens. Miss Havisham was stood up at the alter by her fiancée, since then she has not changed out of her wedding dress and her house remains decorated ready for the wedding which never happened.

“Beloved Sweetheart Bastard”

In this quote, we can clearly see that Miss Havisham is angry and living in hate about her fiancée whishing him dead.

Miss Havisham is a lonely woman who now lives a life of hate towards men as one broke her heart and she cannot get over this.

“Not a day since then I haven’t wished him dead.”  This quote clearly shows Miss Havisham’s hate towards this man. She wants him dead for what he did.

In this poem, Duffy creates images in the readers mind as well as feelings.

“I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes.”

This is creating an image of darkness and hate; “Dark Green pebbles” Dark colours are associated with hate. This quote also creates a feeling of fear, because somebody with dark green pebbles as eyes would be classed as scary and harmful.

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This poem is full of different feelings and emotions, which Duffy is trying to get across to the reader. Most of the feelings in this poem are to do with Death, anger and destruction. Examples of Miss Havisham’s hate and anger are evident throughout the poem.

“Ropes on the backs of my hands I could strangle with”

We can see here that Duffy has described how Havisham is getting old and her veins on her hands are standing out, Duffy describes these veins as “Ropes”. This quote is also describing a feeling “I could strangle with.” Here, Havisham wants ...

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