Miss Havisham Character Analysis

Miss Havisham plays a major role in Great Expectations. She portrayed a depressed, mad woman full of anger and misery. Miss Havisham is one of the, if not the most selfish character throughout the novel. After she was jilted on her wedding day, she has remained “stuck” in that day. As an outcome of this, she has grown with hatred for all men and uses her adopted daughter, Estella to get revenge. Miss Havisham’s self-serving character shows when she takes control of Estella’s life and she becomes a victim of Miss Havisham’s teachings. She raises Estella with no knowledge of what love is or how to love. Instead, Miss Havisham teaches her to torture, hate and break the hearts of men, especially to Pip. "That girl is hard and haughty and capricious

An imagine Charles Dickens has left in my mind is Miss. Havisham. I see this faceless, all bone, yellow skinned lady wearing one shoe and a wedding dress. Miss. Havisham was originally described on page 47 and she was described as a weary, wore down woman and I was having fun imagining this peculiar lady. I see her like Maleficent, because she was written as very boney, again on page 47. I just imagine her cheekbones being very prominent, like Maleficent. I also see her like looking kind of deranged because on page 47 Dickens wrote; "She uttered the word with a eager look, and with a weird smile". I think the weird smile part is what lead me to believe she looks deranged. I can't see her face, but I can see her features like; sunken eyes, that

If not for Miss Havisham, Pip and Estella would never have the connection that they develop. Next, through all the insolent words brought on Pip by Miss Havisham, Pip learns to be more patient with others. Due to her past of hurt feelings Pip understands that Miss Havisham acts the way she does out of pain, not anger. Finally, by giving Pip and his family money, Miss Havisham shows Pip avarice along with Estella. The role Miss Havisham plays in Pip’s life shows itself in many ways.

In the BBC production of “Great Expectations”, by Charles Dickens, a young boy named Pip is being raised by his sister, when he gets the opportunity to go the manor, “Satis House”. The word Satis means Sufficient or enough, and that is exactly what Miss Havisham needs. The book Great Expectations depict her as a very feminist woman that doesn’t not like men since she was left by her fiance on her wedding day. I believe that the movie did the book justice in how the characters were portrayed.

As Miss Havisham told Pip, a young man who fell in love with her daughter Estella, "I'll tell you what love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter-as I did,"().Miss Havisham didn't believe in love anymore after her failed attempt at her own, so she had no respect for the feelings of others. Miss Havisham's personal prison is combined by and strengthened by her neglected home, her refusal to let time pass, and her neglected and confined emotions and these are what keep her in her self-inflicted confinement. She doesn't realize that she isn't going to heal her past by dwelling there.

The Vengeance of Miss Havisham Throughout Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is portrayed as a very mysterious character. Her unknown past makes it hard to form a definite opinion of her from the start. In addition, the unpredictability of Miss Havisham’s words and actions help to keep the reader intrigued up until the very end. Several of the character traits these actions reveal to the reader about Miss Havisham include that she is secluded, manipulative, and hurt.

Miss Havisham is introduced as a depressed, wealthy woman who was stood up on her wedding day. She is also the guardian of the girl he loves, Estella. For a while as Pip visits her house, it seems that Miss Havisham is the benefactress and has him there so she can turn him into a gentleman so he can marry Estella. In fact, this is not actually the case. As we get deeper into the novel, Miss Havisham’s true colors start to show that she is not the innocent depressed woman we first thought of her to be.

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

Though two women in particular never stood for that, and advocated being an egalitarian, Miss Havisham. After being treated wrongly, she lived her life as a widow, living vicariously as if the day never left. She disdained men, any of the sort, since the incident of her fiance leaving a letter of their break-up the day of their wedding and stole her out of a chunk of money she inherited. Never returning to a normal state of mind, she stands up among men and doesn't regret only hurting. Another egalitarian, being Mrs. Joe. Her husband Joe, a nice man was more-like the women in the relationship, taking orders from Mrs. Joe and doing whatever she says. Mrs. Joe never stood for pity and excuses, she herself kept busy by cleaning and cooking.

In the novel Great Expectations, the theme of relentless love is constantly recurring. Pip’s single-minded affection for Estella initially grasps him when he lays his eyes upon her at Miss. Havisham’s Satis House. Although Estella is captivating in Pip’s eyes, she has an underlying temperament of being ignorant and vulgar that remains constant throughout the novel. “‘Anything else” ‘ I think she is very pretty’ ‘Anything else’ ‘I think she is very insulting’’’ (Dickens 62). Although Pip finds Estella alluring, and one day hopes to marry her, he is frequently baffled by her attitude. Estella’s mental state can be viewed as an extension of Miss Havisham, as she was brought up in Satis House. Pip must, additionally, cope with Estella’s ridiculing

Miss Havisham has one clear motive that is known in Great Expectations. During Pip’s first visits to Satis House, he overhears Miss Havisham tell Estella, “Well? You can break his heart,” (Dickens 55) which shows Miss Havisham’s passion to one mission, and it explains how broken Miss Havisham is. It reveals, along with many other occurrences in the novel, that Miss Havisham’s motive is to get revenge on all the men. Miss Havisham wants to raise Estella as a cold-hearted, yet beautiful, woman to deceive other men because of the man that broke her heart, Compeyson.

Years before the events in Great expectations take place, Miss Havisham is defrauded and left at the altar by the love of her life: Compeyson. She is heart-broken and something inside her seems to break-she quickly goes around her house stopping all clocks to the time she received the letter informing her of Compeyson's betrayal and then sits down in her bedroom, leaving everything exactly the same as before.

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is a novel of change, tracking the development of Pip Pirrup as he rises from the lower class, only to find that life is not all he expected it to be. His eventual transformation is influenced by many others, some of whom change themselves along the way. Described as “haughty and capricious to the last degree”, Estella Havisham is one of the most dynamic characters in Great Expectations, forgoing Pip (Dickens 169). Despite being only a secondary character, she’s one of the main focal points, portraying the impact maturity and experience have on the person. As Estella ages, her values shift from those imposed upon her as a child to those she has learned from her suffering as an adult.

Miss Havisham was very strange; she would ware her old dusty wedding dress often, and teaches Stella to be a cold hearted man hater. On the other hand, Pips slowly starts falling for Stella. Unfortunately Stella has other plans and marries a man named Drummel. The whole time Pip is thinking that Mss. Havisham is priming him to be a gentleman, but later disappoints him by telling he that he better start hustling as a black smith with his brother Joe

“Speak the truth you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham passionately striking her stick upon the floor; “are you tied of me.” (324)