MISS HAVISHAM – GREAT EXPECTATIONS - #BLOGCHATTERA2ZCHALLENGE2022
Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens has always been one
of my favourite reads, and one of the main reasons is the intriguing nature of
Miss Havisham, who played a significant role in the life of Pip, the
protagonist. She is the most Gothic of all the characters created by Dickens.
Miss Havisham was a wealthy spinster who had inherited
her father’s fortune and lived in a mansion called Satis House. The story went
that she fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was not in love with her,
but hand in hand with her deceitful stepbrother who wanted to swindle her of
her wealth. However, she refused to listen to any warnings against her fiancé.
On the day of the wedding, as she was getting dressed,
she received a letter from Compeyson, breaking off the relationship. Thus,
jilted at the altar and broken hearted, Miss Havisham had a mental breakdown.
She shut herself away from the world, living alone in the dilapidated mansion.
She never took off her wedding dress, wore one shoe and left her wedding cake
and breakfast on the dining table, untouched. On that fateful day, she had
received the letter at twenty minutes to nine, and to mark the exact time when
her life stopped, in a sense, she had all the clocks in her home stopped as
well.
To alleviate her loneliness, Miss Havisham adopted a
little girl named Estella, but as years went by, she began to instil in her protégé
the idea that she should never be hurt by a man. Slowly, Estella’s heart turned
into ice, and she spurned all men, beginning with young Pip when they were
still children.
Wikimedia Commons
Miss Havisham enjoyed the power that Estella held over a
besotted Pip and stressed on the economic gulf that yawned between them. She raised
Estella as a weapon with which she could wreak revenge on men. Thus, it was an
obsession with the older lady. Later, she did repent, and asked Pip for
forgiveness, but by that time circumstances had changed beyond redemption.
I was so influenced by the character of Miss Havisham that
I created a character close to her in my short story ‘The Lady in White’ in my thriller
anthology titled ‘Where Shadows Follow’.
Fitoor, the Hindi version, came out in 2016, and Tabu
played the role, where she was referred to as Begum Hazrat.
The Indian Express
Scientists have coined the term ‘the Miss Havisham Effect’ to describe a person anguished after having loved and lost, and who has turned the loss into a pleasurable addiction.
I am participating in the #Blogchatter A to Z Challenge! Happy Reading and Writing! :)
I remember watching the BBC adaptation of Great Expectations and being spooked by Miss Havisham. Tabu I think played the role brilliantly, though the movie did miss the point in adaptation.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tabu was quite good, but the movie itself lacked the punch of the original book, or so I felt. But then a masterpiece cannot be replicated that easily. Thanks, Harshita!
DeleteI've always been in awe and kind of intimidated by this character. I didn't know there's 'the Miss Havisham effect'
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Manali! Miss Havisham is unique in that sense. And I didn't know about the Miss Havisham Effect either till I researched for this post.
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