Miss Havisham Coursework

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Subhan Naeem                                                                                English Coursework

Is Miss Havisham a character to be pitied or despised?

I think Miss Havisham is a character to be despised, but also someone you could feel sorry for (pitied).Great Expectations is a novel which focuses on destruction of the heart; not through violence this time, but through living in an uncaring, often brutal society. The Novel focuses on Miss Havisham who is a wealthy spinster who has been jilted, she is a character created by Charles Dickens. She is one of the main characters, along with Pip, who is an orphan and is destined to be trained as a blacksmith, Estella (which means star/brightness), who is Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter. She represents the life of wealth and culture that Pip strives for.

Miss Havisham was created to be in a Victorian era, a depressed and unhappy character. She is an old woman who was abandoned on her wedding day and has, as a result, given up on life. She wears a yellowed wedding gown (from the day that she was supposed to getting married). She has a rotting mansion, made of old brick, and it seems to be dismal (sad and gloomy). The house had many iron bars, some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. This suggests imprisonment as Miss Havisham is locked inside the house and never steps foot outside it. She is a ghost to the outside world. Miss Havisham’s only companion is Estella. Estella is beautiful, and Pip soon finds out he has a strong crush on her, a crush that would turn into love as he grows older. But Miss Havisham has made it her dark life's wish to raise Estella as a cruel-hearted and arrogant girl who will break men's hearts. This is the theme of revenge.

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At first when Pip arrives at Miss Havisham’s rotting mansion, he noticed it is old and decaying. It is called the Satis house. Satis means enough. This is a good example of Dickens use of language because his choice of the name for her house is ironic because she is not living a life of luxury, even though she is a wealthy woman. Pips first impression of Estella is that she is very pretty and seems to be very proud. Pip realizes that Estella always calls him “boy”, with a carelessness that was far form complimentary, even though she ...

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