Critically Analyse the Character of Miss Havisham.

Miss Havisham is a wonderful creation of Dickens in his novel Great Expectations. In her youth she was courted by Compeyson who ultimately deserted her extracting a lot of money from her. In all this trickery and deceit, her half-brother, Arthur, had played a leading part. Since that evil incident, Miss Havisham had remained confined to her own room and was leading a life of seclusion.

Character of Miss Havisham:

Miss Havisham's bitter disappointment has wreaked her happiness and so she has decided to wreak her vengeance upon the male sex. With that object in view, she rears a little girl, Estella. She wants Estella to grow into a hard-hearted woman incapable of feeling any sympathy for any man. She uses Estella as an instrument of her revenge upon male sex. Often, when Pip goes to Miss Havisham's house, he overhears her whispering into Estella's ears: "Break their hearts, my pride and hope; break their hearts, and have no mercy."

Miss Havisham treats her relative in an insulting manner. When she seems to treat Pip with kindness, her real motive is to hurt the feelings of her relatives by arousing the feeling of jealousy in them. There is also an element of trickery in Miss Havisham's nature. She allows Pip to harbour the illusion that she is the source of his good fortune. She even encourages him to continue to have such an impression. But later on Pip discovers that his real benefactor is Magwitch, no Miss Havisham and so he mildly scolds her for having deceived him.

Miss Havisham succeeds in hardening Estella's heart. Estella becomes so hard-heartened that she treats not only men with callousness but also Miss Havisham herself. Miss Havisham is naturally upset at Estella's coldness towards her and when she mentions this to Estella in an aggrieved tone, Estella replies that she (Estella) is what Miss Havisham has made her.

Later in the novel, there is a change in Miss Havisham. Pip's pleadings on behalf of the Pocket family produce the desired effect upon her mind and she authorises Pip to receive an amount of nine hundred pounds from Jaggers as financial help for Herbert. She is now full of remorse over her past cynicism and hard-heartedness. She feels particularly repentant of her having allowed Pip to continue to have the wrong impression that she was the source of his good fortune. Miss Havisham also confesses her guilt in having perverted Estella's heart: "I stole her heart away and put ice in its place."

Miss Havisham at the end of the novel appears as a pathetic character. Once she had been frighteningly formidable but in the end she was reduced to the state of a helpless and powerless silly old woman.

 

 

 

You Can also Read:

 

• Dickens Portray the Obsession of the Victorian Society with Money in "Great Expectations".

• Picture of Victorian Society do You Get in “Great Expectations”.

• Moral Development of Pip in “Great Expectations”.

• Sensational and Grotesque Elements in “Great Expectations”.

• Dickens's “Great Expectations” is a Study of Moral and Psychological Development.

• Dickens's Art of Characterisation in “Great Expectations”.

• Significance of the Title “Great Expectations”.

•            Dickens's Use of Humour in “Great Expectations”.