Duffy obviously takes the figure of Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations. But the question then is: why? to what effect? what, in this pre-existing figure, presents itself as an opportunity for the writer? how is Duffy's figure different fro...
Duffy obviously takes the figure of Miss Havisham from Dickens's Great Expectations. But the question then is: why? to what effect? what, in this pre-existing figure, presents itself as an opportunity for the writer? how is Duffy's figure different from Dickens's?One simple thing: The title is Havisham, rather than Miss Havisham - which is how the character is always referred to throughout Great Expectations. Why, to what effect?Perhaps Miss defines the character socially - whereas the poem concentrates on the nature of the character's individual feelings - the character's psychological/sexual nature, rather than her social being. The absence of the formal title also makes the 'feel' of the poem blunter, more simply there, perhaps. Duffy's poem gives Miss Havisham a body, a knot of desires which Dickens does not attempt.beloved sweetheart bastardThe poem begins as if addressed to the jilting bridegroom. It doesn't continue in this direct address - by the end of the poem the male figure will have become a male corpse - any male (generalised), and radically rendered into an object (no
longer even alive).The most striking thing about the first sentence is the combination of 'love' (beloved sweetheart) and hatred (bastard). Dickens's character is motivated by revenge alone - against the male sex in general. Duffy is interested in the unstable combination of desire and hatred; Havisham's desire - her sexual being - is not simply cancelled out by the unreliability of the bridegroom: it continues, as Havisham's body must continue - in an uncertain, knotted compound. This is what I take to be central to the poem and Duffy's treatment of the pre-existing character: Duffy gives the character a body, ...
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longer even alive).The most striking thing about the first sentence is the combination of 'love' (beloved sweetheart) and hatred (bastard). Dickens's character is motivated by revenge alone - against the male sex in general. Duffy is interested in the unstable combination of desire and hatred; Havisham's desire - her sexual being - is not simply cancelled out by the unreliability of the bridegroom: it continues, as Havisham's body must continue - in an uncertain, knotted compound. This is what I take to be central to the poem and Duffy's treatment of the pre-existing character: Duffy gives the character a body, a continuing sexual being.dark green pebblesThe description of her eyes stands in here for the effects upon her psychology of her continuous hatred: pebbles because the resultant hardness in her feelings; dark because of her 'evil' thoughts of revenge (wishing him dead) - but also because the mix of her feelings are not simply to be understood, even by herself; green out of envy (of the man, of anyone with a happier life).ropes on the back of my handsThe 'ropes' are the veins on her hands, swollen by age. But note - throughout the poem it is almost as if she blames the man for her getting old, as if ageing is the consequence of her abandonment, her lack of fulfillment. And in this line, the 'effects' of her unhappiness are fantasized as the means of her revenge (strangle).SpinsterThis one word sentence is what she is, what society sums her up as, what she has been condemned to be by the man's abandonment of her - almost as if there would be nothing more to say about her for the rest of society.stink and rememberWhat her life is - in her own eyes: decay and memory - that is all that she's been left with to do. The absence of any meaningful, physical action in the present is central to her bitterness. What is there for her to do? (whole days in bed...)cawing Nooooocawing makes the woman sound animal-like. Throughout the poem, language is under pressure, breaking down. (curses that are sounds not words...and the last word b-b-b-breaks; her tongue only becomes fluent in dream, and then only in kissing, not speech). Both sexual passion and speech require a partner.the dressOne of the few visual details which is simply taken from Dickens.her, myselfIn looking at herself in the mirror, there is a momentary failure to recognise herself as herself. She has aged so that she no longer looks like her self-image. This change in appearance, this ageing without having 'lived', is felt not as something natural and expected, but as something 'done' to her, and as such, done by somebody - the jilting bridegroom.some nights betterIn this verse, in dream, Havisham can momentarily enact her desire. The verse is sexual and physical in a way quite impossible for Dickens - even if he had wanted to suggest something of this continuing desire in his character (which he did not).bite awakeEven in this verse expressing desire, it ends however on a moment of hate and revenge. (the progress from mouth and ear, then down - does this fantasize a revenging emasculation of the bridegroom's body?)Love's hateThe third verse's combination of love and hate is confirmed in this phrase which straddles the break between verses - so, drawing attention to the oxymoron, the unstable mixture of Havisham's emotions.red balloonThe balloon - like the wedding cake - is suggested by the celebrations which did not take place. Red for passion, physicality - love; bursting, for hate, and also the intolerable emotional pressure which the poem expresses.male corpseThe corpse and the long slow honeymoon combines both love and revenge; long and slow is a peculiar combination of enjoyment and torture.The tone of this line is a world away from Dickens' Miss Havisham; it sounds more like a kind of psychopathic Mae West in its flip sexual aggression. So kind of 'strong' is it that perhaps only the stutter of the last line restores the 'pathos' of the situation, perhaps.don't think it's only the heartDickens presents a character whose sentiments have become twisted, whose heart (as she melodramatically announces to the young Pip) has been broken. Duffy's character is more fundamentally under pressure - physical desire, language - these 'basic' human attributes - have both been refused proper expression, and have become knotted and skewed. The stammered b-b-b-breaks enacts a kind of collapse caused by this.