The Good in Miss Havisham
-Blog Post #5-
Topic B
May 12, 2015
Miss Havisham’s
character develops significantly in the last chapters of Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations. Before her
revelation, Miss Havisham is cold-hearted, vengeful, and downright creepy. She
resents all men for what happened to her years ago—being jilted the day of her
wedding—by one single man. For years, she does not forgive, and in return, she
raises her daughter, Estella, to be a man’s worst nightmare to finally get
revenge on all men, not just the man that left her at the altar— Compeyson.
While in the process of teaching Estella to be horrible to men, she also takes
away Estella’s ability to love her as well as men. Estella reveals this when
she tells Miss Havisham in an argument.
However, after her
dress catches on fire and Pip saves her, Miss Havisham realizes that because of
the way she raised Estella, Pip was hurt the same way she was by Compeyson. In
shock, she screams, “’What have I done,’” referencing how she treated Estella
(387). She also admits that she “meant to save [Estella] from misery,” but
instead, she did the opposite and made Estella and Pip miserable (387). Miss
Havisham immediately begs for forgiveness after her revelation, but Pip never
gives her for it. She dies with knowing she will never be forgiven.
Miss Havisham
develops from a person who only thinks of herself to a woman who cares about
the feelings of others toward the end of her lifetime.
Elyse, I completely agree with you. Miss Havisham changes a ton within the last few chapters of the book. Her personality completely changes while she remains her creepy self. However, Miss Havisham is not the only character to change. Many of the characters known from the beginning of the book have either a change of heart or personality. Pip is an obvious example since the story is about his change of expectations, but Estella changes as she realizes that being hard-hearted and mean to all men is wrong. Joe goes from expecting Pip to be a modest blacksmith to accepting Pip as a gentleman. Mrs. Joe, on the other hand, goes through the most dramatic change. In the beginning of the book she is harsh, while after her accident she is forgetful and quiet. Soon, she passes to life on Earth to life after death.
ReplyDeleteElyse, I really enjoyed this post. You bring up a really good point that I have overlooked. I think it is quite tragic that she dies without ever getting Pip’s forgiveness, but I am afraid that she deserved it. Of course Pip should have the decency to forgive her, but it is understandable as to why he wouldn’t. Miss Havisham has basically taken Pip and messed him all up. From the very first time Pip set foot in the Satis house, Miss Havisham has been forcing Pip to love Estella and constantly saying, “love her, love her, love her!”(269). Of course she had no intention of letting Estella fall for him as you have said. She purposely set Pip up for heart break and she can’t say she was only trying to protect Estella. She wanted Estella to break Pip’s heart. If she really wanted to protect Estella, all she would have to do is raise her to be cautious and not jump straight into love. But of course she took the route in which someone would get hurt, and therefore Miss Havisham had it coming to her.
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