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Miss Havisham Garden Essay

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The novel Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy named Pip whom must bounce between social classes in order to discover his true self. In the novel, Dickens uses setting to great effect to describe the relation between Pip and the social environment or the point of development that Pip happens to be in the story. When Pip finds himself in the marshes in which he is introduced to an escaped convict, Pip is clouded by doubt and ignorance. Then there is Miss Havisham’s garden which Dickens uses as an extended metaphor and makes references to throughout the story. Miss Havisham’s garden is first mentioned during Pip’s first visit to the Havisham manor, also known as the “Satis House”. Pip describes the garden as a “rank garden with an old wall” (111) and mentions that it has “overgrown with tangled weeds” (111). Pip observes that there is an unusual indentation in the form of a path intersecting the garden that one can only assume to be a result of Miss. Havisham drifting through her decaying …show more content…

At first, Pip sees the garden for what is not and not for what it is. That is to say, because Pip had unrealistic expectations regarding the entirety of Miss Havisham’s property, during his first visit Pip is quick to point out the flaws of the garden with no mention of a redeeming quality of any sort. This a product of the fact that Pip was in a stage of his life where he was indecisive and was viewing the world through a naïve lens. At this point in time, the garden takes on a negative connotation and is a manifestation of the devastating betrayal of Compeyson on Miss Havisham, whom tricked her into believing that they were to be married but fled at the last moment. Miss Havisham was sent into such a deep despair that her perception of time had stopped moving forward as evidenced by a deteriorating garden per Pip’s

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