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Miss Havisham And Magwitch Essay

Decent Essays

We enjoy reality TV shows because it allows us to experience other’s lives without having to get truly involved. We live through these people on the screen. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens gives us two examples of people who lived through others by watching from afar, but still maintaining an element of control. While the example of Magwitch is a very positive one, in which he turns his life around and lives honestly, the example of Miss Havisham is a very negative one, in which she destroys and damages the life of her adopted daughter. Miss Havisham adopted and lived through Estella; Magwitch lived through Philip Pirrip, or Pip and living through them left permanent effects on their lives
Miss Havisham sought revenge on all males due to her own bitterness and used her own adopted daughter to achieve her goal. She raised Estella to crush the heart of every man she met. Miss Havisham greedily absorbed the love that any male, including Pip, had for Estella. In the book, she actually tells Estella to “Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!” And Estella succeeds. “never before had he (Dickens) portrayed a man’s love for a …show more content…

Pip’s life was affected in that he moved to London to learn to become a gentleman, and his entire worldview shifted, though not in a positive way. This ultimately leads to his fall and accumulation of debts. However, once Pip loses his wealth, his old worldview is restored and he moves back to the countryside, inspired by Magwitch, and becomes a somewhat successful businessman. Estella was not so lucky. She was raised to never love, and so, she never could. It takes abuse and tragedy to get Estella to finally soften and begin to care. It was once she felt physically the paint that she had inflicted upon Pip emotionally that she began to regret her actions and see a future that was not quite as

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