Mad, Vengeful Miss Havisham

Dickens is very effective at presenting Miss Havisham to the reader in Chapter 8. He makes use of Gothic techniques to create the evil impression of Miss Havisham on the reader. She is the mad, vengeful Miss Havisham, a wealthy dowager who lives in a rotting mansion and wears an old wedding dress every day of her life; her character and the house she lives in represent the element of Gothic literature in the novel. Miss Havisham is an example of single-minded vengeance pursued destructively.

Even before Pip is introduced to Miss Havisham the tone for their first meeting is set as Pip is first given the idea of Miss Havisham from the house which she lives in. The description of her house is very symbolic as her house is a clear example of Gothic literature. Evidence of this is: “...had a great many bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up...all the lower were rustily barred”. This shows the direct link to Gothic literature because on e of the main themes of Gothic literature is the haunted essence to the surroundings. This is shown in the quote as it says ‘walled up’ and ‘rustily barred’, these are both phrases which show elements of derelict houses etc. This also shows the exclusion of the people inside the house from the people outside. These phrases represent typical Victorian ideas about decay; they imagined that if anything or anyplace was decaying then it would be barred up etc.

The reader’s first impression of Estella is that she is extremely proud, pretty and although actually being the same age as Pip acting in a much more mature way. This is why Pip called Estella a ‘young lady’ because other than the way she spoke her actions were quite rude and pompous. This is shown when Dickens writes: “‘This is Pip ...

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... discontinued her life and this is mainly represented by the clocks and watches in her house stopping at twenty to nine. She has raised Estella to hate men and break their hearts just as her future husband had the day of her wedding. Miss Havisham’s function in the story is to create a source of fear and as Pip visited her house, her character was created

to scare Pip because as he is a young child and is easily scared by the dark and death. Charles Dickens also uses semantic fields of death and darkness to add to the element of fear. Dickens also uses Miss Havisham’s character as a comparison between the upper class and the working class in Victorian times. This is shown when Pip is constantly shamed and insulted by Miss Havisham and Estella when they refer to him as a common labouring boy. This makes Pip feel that he wants to better himself to impress Estella.