In Great Expectations, Is Miss Havisham crazy and/or evil?

In Great Expectations, Is Miss Havisham crazy and/or evil?

The mad,eccentric and incredibly peculiar Miss Havisham,a wealthy

dowager who lives in an old, rotting mansion secluded from the outside

world is certainly one of the most memorable creations in the book

Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens.

From the first introductory scene on encountering Miss Havisham’s

character it is immediately clear that she is supposed to leave a

lasting impression on the reader.

Dickens uses a vast variety of imagery and word choice to describe the

appearance of the house in which Miss Havisham lives . Satis house,as

it was called, emits an ominous presence with its old brick walled up

windows and many iron bars.This gives the sense that outsiders where

not entirely welcome and rarely visited.

The room in which she sat was vividly described as dark with “no

glimpse of daylight.. to be seen” and furnished with many old and

unrecognisable objects .The vivid setting is emphasised by the young

boy,Pip, who narrates this entire experience and describes Miss

Havisham at first as “the strangest lady I have ever seen or shall

ever see.”.

The cause or her peculiarity? A single, tragic event which was to take

over Miss Havishams life for ever.Her life is defined by the jilting

of her fiancée and lover Compeyson and from that moment forth her

world has been one based around heartbreak and betrayel thus, casting

herself away from the realms of reality. From the exact moment in time

when she first learnt Compeyson was gone, the old woman stopped all

the clocks from ticking and fixed them at twenty minutes to nine. This

links into her somewhat dishevelled appearance at a first glance for

only one shoe was upon her f...

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...her parting from her”.

In conclusion Miss Havisham was neither crazy, nor was she evil. She

was mentally ill, driven to insanity with love and pain, with nobody

to care for her. She was a confused lady, with nowhere to turn;

therefore, she created her own fictional world where nothing changed

and her own experience of emotional betrayal cast a prolonging shadow

over her entire life. Dickens illustrates the fact that interpersonal

and family relationships are forever changing, as remaining still only

leads to tragedy. Her character draws in the reader as her peculiarity

is mysterious, interesting and somewhat chilling as she is just that

little bit different. Charles Dickens uses an exceptionally vast

amount of word choice and word imagery to give us this unforgettable

impression of one of the most memorable characters ever created in

English literature.