Miss Havisham Essay

“Child abuse and neglect affects over 1 million children every year” (Washington, DC: Prevent Child Abuse America, 2012). How appalling is this? These children have little hope of escaping their home and its members, just like character Estella in the book Great Expectations. Little adopted Estella is verbally beaten by Miss Havisham and has no way of escaping her clutch. The consequences of Miss Havisham’s actions will affect Estella forever. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens uses Estella’s lack of feelings to exhibit the way Estella has been raised by Miss Havisham.

Miss Havisham once had soft skin and delicate eyes full of compassion and spirit that was before the fall. The wicked witch had a warm heart and opened up to a man named

Daily, Miss Havisham forced the girl to steal the heart of young men and lovingly torture them. However Estella had no choice, Miss Havisham did not care if she wanted to go outside and run away. Estella’s nefarious mother eliminated any of her opinions or freedoms of being an innocent young girl. In chapter 33, Estella said to Pip, “We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you and I” (Dickens 249). Estella states that she has to “follow instructions”; Miss Havisham has taken away her ability to form her own choices. Maltreatment can cause children to have feelings of hopelessness – Estella has submitted herself to Miss Havisham when she says, “…we have no choice”. Estella has become a puppet in a sense. She carries out vicious orders from her master. The feeble girl has been taught to act in such a manner since adoption; it’s the only behavioral aspect in which she knows to function. Estella’s lack of feelings prohibits her from telling Pip how she truthfully feels, due to the fact that Miss Havisham raised her to behave

If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces - and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper - love her, love her, love her!’” (Dickens 224). Corrupt Miss Havisham begs Pip to love, love, love, Estella because that her purpose in life. The immediate moment after Miss Havisham’s wedding scene, she returns home and asks her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, to find a girl that she could “love”. Instead, she raised with her crooked morals, set up play dates with young gentlemen and repeatedly told her to tear the fellow’s heart apart. Her desperation for Estella to be loved was shown, as Miss Havisham repeated the word love three times, not just once. Miss Havisham wants to have men’s hearts crushed. The quote mentions, “even if she wounds you”, Miss Havisham’s goal of making men miserable has been bestowed upon Estella because she was cultivated to hurt others. Boys like Pip, fell in love with Estella for her beauty and can not stop to realize that she is damaged emotionally. She can never love the man of her dreams due to Miss Havisham’s blindness and