How does miss havisham relate to pip and estella

After all, Miss Havisham can't exactly go off to Cairo and become a partner in a shipping firm. Young, single women just couldn't do things like that in the nineteenth century; their options were marriage or, well, marriage. And because she was a lady, she couldn't go off and work, like Biddy—it would have been almost unthinkable for a rich or formerly rich daughter of a gentleman to do anything except maybe become a governess or another rich lady's companion—and even that would have been stretching it.

Did Miss Havisham really have another choice? Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Charles Dickens. Previous Next. Miss Havisham Click the character infographic to download. Jaggers Mr. Wopsle Mr. Tired of ads? Join today and never see them again. By wilfully stopping her life at a moment of pain and humiliation, she indulges her own anger, self-pity, and desire for revenge; she imagines her death as "the finished curse" upon the man who jilted her page In her revenge, which destroys her life, she is like a child who hurts itself in its anger at someone else.

The decay around her also represents her relationship with others. Her relationships are symbiotic, as we discussed in class. Her relatives try to feed off her wealth, and she feeds off their envy and subservience. The feeding relationship is symbolized by the mice, which eat the bridal cake and which she claims have gnawed at her heart.

She even imagines herself laid out on the table for their consumption after her death. Miss Havisham feeds off both Estella and Pip to achieve her own ends. The feeding or attempting to feed off of others for self-gratification is one manifestation of the dehumanization or depersonalization that runs through the novel; repeatedly characters use others as objects, to enhance their own prestige and self-image, like Pumblechook constantly taking credit and Mrs.

Joe raising Pip "by hand. Depersonalizing human beings by using them as objects is such a heinous moral transgression that it is identified as a crime. Pip calls Pumblechook "that basest of swindlers"; taking credit for events to which he has no connection, he takes Pip "into custody, with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far behind" page Because of its dehumanizing emphasis on wealth and status, society itself is implicitly accused of criminality.

As the cruelties and destructive consequences of society's values reveal themselves, society is condemned as criminal. Miss Havisham encourages Estella to entrap Pip and break his heart, for practice. Estella complies, and they play a card game, Beggar My Neighbor.

Later, Miss Havisham explicitly urges Pip to love Estella:. Though Pip is aware that the love she refers to sounds like hate, despair, revenge, and death, a curse rather than a blessing, he perseveres in his attachment for Estella.

His attachment had and continues to have adverse effects on him. Pip, both in his dream of having great expectations to win Estella and in the realization of those expectations, is passive; he waits for others and for events to act upon him and give him direction, meaning, and purpose.

He wishes to become a gentleman because he is unhappy with his status, and his desire to be a gentleman makes him unhappy. His feelings about Joe and home make him feel guilty. Once he is made a gentleman, he becomes a snob and leads a futile, empty life. Never in Estella's presence is he happy, as he well knows, yet he dreams of being happy with her in some future, when Miss Havisham will bestow her upon him.

How to analyse the quote:. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred ; so we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until someone should come and open it. How to use this in an essay:. Miss Havisham has turned Satis House into her own personal prison with herself as its only prisoner. There are 'bars' everywhere and the windows have been blocked; the whole building is described as 'dismal' which suggests Pip will find a gloomy and depressing interior too.

Miss Havisham has not been outside her house for over ten years and has had all of her clocks stopped so that she is unaware of time passing. Her emotions are also imprisoned and frozen in time at the point at which she was jilted by Compeyson. Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. A bootblack shining another man's shoes. Miss Havisham hides herself away , wears only her wedding clothes, has stopped all the clocks and refuses to see members of her own family.

I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. She has also not been outside the house for at least ten years. Miss Havisham has been betrayed by a single man and now wishes to get even with mankind in general. Everything she does especially with Estella is to achieve that purpose.