Miss Havisham and Magwitch from Great Expectations

Discuss the relationship between character and location in the case of

Magwitch and the marshes; Miss Havisham and Satis House (chapters 1-19)

Both the characters Miss Havisham and Magwitch are linked closely with

their respective surroundings, as Dickens employs imagery and pathetic

fallacy to illustrate this. Although many characters in Great

Expectations reflect their environments, the relationship of Miss

Havisham and Magwitch offer a particular contrast. The novel echoes

many of Dickens’s own life experiences, and the reader is given a

strong flavour of Victorian history and commonplace. There is no doubt

that when Dickens describes the marshes in the early stages of the

novel, he is influenced by his own passion for the Kent marshes and

docks.

In a physical sense, the convict seems to mirror the marshes in many

ways, “A fearful man, all in coarse grey… A man who had been soaked in

water, and smothered in mud…” The colours of Magwitch’s reflect the

bleakness of the surroundings, and the way he has been “soaked in

water” and “smothered in mud” emphasise how he appears to erupt

violently from the marsh and be part of it. Both Magwitch and the

marshes seem to terrify Pip, “I was dreadfully frightened, and so

giddy that I clung to him with both hands…” Although the convict seems

to scare Pip in a more direct sense, using cannibalistic threats in

some cases, “ ‘Darn Me if I couldn’t eat them’” the marsh is a

desolate landscape of crime, guilt and punishment that become symbolic

of a sense or original sin that Pip cannot shake off. It is an

elemental environment of mud, water, mist and boisterous wind, where

the gibbet, image of retribution, dominates the low skyline. Again,

with the image of reprisal...

... middle of paper ...

...ymbol of her

morbid, poisoned mind, as it is positioned central to the table. The

demise of the wedding preparations epitomises the theme of decay. The

“black fungus” on the wedding cake is an extension of herself, as she

seems to know, when she invites her money-sucking relatives to feast

on her like the speckled spiders and the black beetles when she is

laid on the dining table following death.

In conclusion, the world of the marsh and Satis House are not that far

apart, neither are the two characters of Magwitch of Miss Havisham.

The dirt and decay of Miss Havisham’s chamber are associated with the

elemental mud of the village graveyard that Pip visits. The mist on

the marshes and spider’s cobwebs are seen by Pip on the rotting

wedding cake in the banquet hall. Finally, both characters influence

Pip in very different ways throughout the entire novel.