Hi,
There are plenty of places where you can get a character analysis of Miss Havisham. Try here or here or here or here, for example.
I'm going to give you my interpretations/conclusions to answer the question: what does Miss Havisham represent in Great Expectations?
Here are my final thoughts on Miss Havisham:
1) She's not a realistic character, but a symbol. She is the wicked witch of this dark, inverted fairy tale. She wears one shoe like some kind of twisted Cinderella. But this Cinderella doesn't get her fairytale reversal of fortune. She can be seen as a nightmarish representation of where thwarted expectations and obsessive love can take you. Her situation is an extreme version of Pip's own in many ways. They both lose their fortune to some extent, they are both rejected by the one they love, and they both pine away in a state of stasis instead of moving on with their lives. In terms of bildungsroman, Pip has to learn about the true nature of happiness, love, friendship and what it takes to be a gentle Christian man. He has to do this to avoid Miss Havisham's fate: despair, depression and decay. In the end, he manages it. One he has symbolically 'closed with her' during the fire scene in chapter 49, he is free to move on with his life: accepting Magwitch, accepting his new situation in life, and seeking his own fortune in a similar manner to Herbert. Miss Havisham represents a grotesque, destructive, obsessive and self-loathing part of Pip's psyche which has to be destroyed for him to develop.
2) Miss Havisham can also be seen as a caricatured representation of the status of women in the 19th century (context alert!). She has inherited wealth, land and power - and yet her whole life is defined by her failure to get married. In a society where wealthy women cannot work, where their only aim and ambition is a good marriage (see Jane Austen), Miss Havisham's story shows what can happen in a patriarchal world if a woman's limited choices go wrong.
3) Consider the name:
Unlike Pip and Estella, Miss Havisham's name is rather ambiguous. It might make us think have a shame. Certainly, Miss Havisham's character partly hides herself away out of shame about her failure to marry. This also explains her loathing of her family - the ones who might judge her for her mistakes.
More interestingly though, it might make us think have a sham. A sham is something fake. When Estella first arrives in London, she calls Miss Havisham an 'imposter'. What does she mean by this? Perhaps she means that Miss Havisham is putting on an act? Or that her apparent care and concern for Estella is a pretence? Certainly, she knows that Pip believes her to be his benefactor and, as she admits, she let him 'go on'. Later, she admits that her original intent in adopting Estella was to protect her by stealing her heart away and 'putting ice in its place', but in the end she uses her beauty as a weapon against men. This part of her plan backfires when Estella is made to suffer at the hands of Bentley Drummle.
I hope this helps. I'll try to put together a list of essential quotes tomorrow.
The BBC Bitesize revision notes on Great Expectations can be found here.
The BBC Bitesize revision notes on Macbeth can be found here.
Mr M
I'm going to give you my interpretations/conclusions to answer the question: what does Miss Havisham represent in Great Expectations?
Here are my final thoughts on Miss Havisham:
1) She's not a realistic character, but a symbol. She is the wicked witch of this dark, inverted fairy tale. She wears one shoe like some kind of twisted Cinderella. But this Cinderella doesn't get her fairytale reversal of fortune. She can be seen as a nightmarish representation of where thwarted expectations and obsessive love can take you. Her situation is an extreme version of Pip's own in many ways. They both lose their fortune to some extent, they are both rejected by the one they love, and they both pine away in a state of stasis instead of moving on with their lives. In terms of bildungsroman, Pip has to learn about the true nature of happiness, love, friendship and what it takes to be a gentle Christian man. He has to do this to avoid Miss Havisham's fate: despair, depression and decay. In the end, he manages it. One he has symbolically 'closed with her' during the fire scene in chapter 49, he is free to move on with his life: accepting Magwitch, accepting his new situation in life, and seeking his own fortune in a similar manner to Herbert. Miss Havisham represents a grotesque, destructive, obsessive and self-loathing part of Pip's psyche which has to be destroyed for him to develop.
2) Miss Havisham can also be seen as a caricatured representation of the status of women in the 19th century (context alert!). She has inherited wealth, land and power - and yet her whole life is defined by her failure to get married. In a society where wealthy women cannot work, where their only aim and ambition is a good marriage (see Jane Austen), Miss Havisham's story shows what can happen in a patriarchal world if a woman's limited choices go wrong.
3) Consider the name:
Unlike Pip and Estella, Miss Havisham's name is rather ambiguous. It might make us think have a shame. Certainly, Miss Havisham's character partly hides herself away out of shame about her failure to marry. This also explains her loathing of her family - the ones who might judge her for her mistakes.
More interestingly though, it might make us think have a sham. A sham is something fake. When Estella first arrives in London, she calls Miss Havisham an 'imposter'. What does she mean by this? Perhaps she means that Miss Havisham is putting on an act? Or that her apparent care and concern for Estella is a pretence? Certainly, she knows that Pip believes her to be his benefactor and, as she admits, she let him 'go on'. Later, she admits that her original intent in adopting Estella was to protect her by stealing her heart away and 'putting ice in its place', but in the end she uses her beauty as a weapon against men. This part of her plan backfires when Estella is made to suffer at the hands of Bentley Drummle.
I hope this helps. I'll try to put together a list of essential quotes tomorrow.
The BBC Bitesize revision notes on Great Expectations can be found here.
The BBC Bitesize revision notes on Macbeth can be found here.
Mr M
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