Comment_on_Havisahm

Abstrict：Charles Dickens,one of the greatest 19th critical realistic writers,is renowed English writer all around the world. He and his works have great impact on the entire literary world. Great expectation is his post-stage work, which is a novel of education and describes the growth and personal development. It shows Dicken’s sharp criticism to the upper-class society of England. The female character Miss Havisham in Great Expectation is one of the most impressive creations of Charles Dickens, and the description of this tragic character Miss Havisham displays the corruption of money to human’s relationship. Miss Havisham lives a dark life because of her jilting by her fiance. She is an example of single-minded vengeance pursued destructively. The tragic fate of Miss Havisham is analyzed from the aspects of the society , family and herself, aiming at revealing the tragic status and endings of females in the Victorian England under the male-centered society. Keywords: the tragic fate; male-centered society;female position 1 Introduction The female character Miss Havisham in Great Expectation is the most memorable and vivid creation. Through the portrayal of Miss Havisham, Dickens shows us the females’ position and fate in the Victorian England under the male-centered society. In Victorian Age, the most agreeable female image should be the “ Angel in the house”, which means women should be feminine, loyal, virtuous and pure. They were subject to man and needed the protection of man. For women,their husbands and family mean the whole thing in their life and they had no voice in the family. Although Miss Havisham in Great Expectation has some differences on this point, she is still affected by the traditional image. Most people regard her as a hateful her person. However , she is a tragic person worthy of sympathy. In this paper, the reasons of this tragic character will be analyzed through studying the society ,family, and Miss Havisham herself, the reasons of this tragic character will be analyzed through studying the society, family and Miss Havisham herself. In this way, we can have an objective and all-round understanding of this image. 2 Dickens and the Characterization of Miss Havisham 2.1 Dickens and His Great Expectation Charles Dickens is a 19th century critical realistic writer; his works reveal various malpractices society and reflect the misery of the lower-class people. Charles is also a master of characterization. He has a tendency to depict the grotesque(very odd or unusual, fantastically ugly or absurd) characters or event. This is ture in his characterization and in his description of scenes. Most of Dickens’s characters have a peculiar habit, maner, behavior, dress, and catch phase of his or her own. These charactera are full of vitality and can demonstrate the type of personality. One of his mature works, Great Expectation, is his post-stage work, which is a novel of education and describes the growth and personal development. It shows Dicken’s sharp criticism to the upper-class society of England. Great Expectation also reflects his description of the depth and breadth of characters. Sometimes in Dicken’s novel, the protagonist is described feeble, while some secondary characters,particularly the characters with strange spirit are portrayed lifelike. The female character Miss Havisham belongs to such figures. She is one of the figures potrayed quite successfully in the book Miss Havisham and Her Tragic Fate Miss Havisham is one of the most strange and grotesque characters in the story, the "wicked witch" of the fairy tale. Miss Havisham was proud, beautiful, passionate, and headstrong, things Compeyson used against her. Deeply hurt, reeling from the loss of control she felt by the betrayal, and determined to regain both control and self-image, Miss Havisham chooses her lifestyle。The mad vengeful Miss Havisham is a wealthy, eccentric odd dowager who lives in a rotting mansion called Satis House. She is manic and often seems insane, flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table, and surrounding herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. Miss Havisham is not exactly a believable character, but she is certainly one of the most memorable creations in the book. Miss Havisham’s life is defined by a single tragic event: her jilting by Compeyson on what was to have been their wedding day. From that moment forth, Miss Havisham is determined never to move beyond her heartbreak. She stops all the clocks in Satis House at twenty minutes to nine, the moment she first learnt that Compeyson was gone, and she wears only one shoe because when she learnt of his betrayed, she had not yet put on the other shoe. With a kind of manic and obsessive cruely, Miss Havisham adopts Estella and raises her as a weapon to achieve her own revenge on men. Miss Havisham is an example of single-minded vengeance pursued destructively; both herself and the people in her life suffer greatly because of her quest for revenge. Miss Havisham is completely unable to see that her actions are hurtful to Pip and Estella. She is redeemed at the end of the novel when she has caused Pip’s heart to be broken in the same manner as her own; rather than achieving any kind of personal revenge, she has only caused more pain. As Miss Havisham is a complex character with rich soul, through the interpretation of Miss Havisham’ s soul, we can have a better understanding of Dicken’s life and what’s important, we can obtain knowledge of social conflict and women’s heart in 19th Victorian era. 3.2 The social influence on Miss Havisham’s tragic fate Although the Victorian Age meets a material prosperity, the polarization of wealth is widening and the class contradition is becoming more srecious, and this result in the corruption of money to human’s relationship. And the marriage, love, courts. Jails etc are based on this. Miss Havisham is just the victim of this society. Lived in the upper class, the simple and proud Miss Havisham feel in love with Compeyson madly, but she could know Compeyson just love her money. So when she was jilted by her fiance minutes befores her wedding, she couldn’t face the fact but lived a gloomy life from then on. And she suffered greatly from the pain of love and her quest for revenge. The Victorian Age is a male-centered society, the idea that women should be subjective to men roots in women’s mind. The concept of male dominates for a long time, which causes women accept the stereotype subconsciously. And in order to realize women’s virtue and morality to fit for the standard of male-centered society, women should devote everything even their lives. In such a society, women can’t be independent from men; their fragile souls make them unable to face the life’s suffering staunchly. Thus the tragedy of Miss Havisham is inevitable. 4 The impact of family on Miss Havisham’s tragic fate During 1940s in England, there appeared a large numbers of books on women’s role, which claim that the women’s duty is to be a good wife and a good mother, and family is the best place for a women to display. Vitruous women should be submissive and impeccable; their task is to please their husbands, tolerant their warmth and violence elegantly, understand and accept their tastes. The concept on family and women of middle-class is widespread in the society through newspapers and books. The gender perspective and family concept occupy a dominant position in Victorian era, which has different degrees of impact on the various social class. Under the influence of such social trends, marriage has become women’s life coordinate. To the vast majority of middle-class women, their fates completely depend on the marriage, which is their only way out. Besides , the puritanical traditional concepts have forced women to accept the view on the sense of nurturing women. They devote themselves to the pursuit of devoutness and purity; to the self-molding of elegant, pure, gentle and obedient women. In family, women play an active role of virtuous wife and good mother taking care of their family and rearing children. However , this Victorian age women have been respected in the family, it is void. Instead, it is limited up by the saying “Angel in the house”. In marriage, the dominant position of husband is still supported by the law and women have no money and on power. 4.1 The influence of Miss Havisham’ own family background Family also plays a pivotal role in Great Expectation, Biddy and Joe’s warm and harmony family, Wemmick’s castle away from the noise of secular and Matthew’s family. Compared with the dark and deserted Satis House of Miss Havisham, this has highlighted Miss Havisham’s sad fate. Born in an aristocratic family,Miss Havisham should be a pretty proud young lady, but her failed marriage made her lose of survival and courage. Therefore one prospered manor has become into a drab, lifeless land of decadence. That she could not bear the blow is closely connected to her family background. For such a pretty young lady with high status, her jilting by Compeyson was a dishonored, disgraceful thing and also an unprecedented setback. Therefore the influence of family environment, the social norms have made her unable to bear the lover’s betrayal. In order to avoid secular perspective, and also because all the illusions that has shattered, she chose to be self-enclosed and isolated. This is a tragedy caused by society and family as well. 5 The impact of her self on Miss Havisham’s tragedy fate No matter how great the society and family have influenced Miss Havisham’s fate, her personality played the most important role in her life. She can not cast off her heart shackles. A failure in her life destroys her faith and also arouses her strong desire for revenge, which makes her behavior eccentric. She has no way to move beyond her heartbreak, which deeply tried and made her almost crazy and ragged. The fire of revenge is burning, which hurt the others and also make the influence destruction of herself. 5.1 Miss Havisham’ s Character A lot of people regard Miss Havisham as a villain, while in this paper she is regarded as neither a villain nor benevolence but a character with complex presonality who has her own values. On the hand, Miss Havisham hates her poor relatives who are not truly compassionate and charitable. They are famning, insincere and just in an attempt to cheat her memory. She retorts them sarcatically and express their lies ironically. On the other hand, she is still thinking about her cousin Matthew who really wants to help her. She knows, in her heart , that he is a man of integrity and honesty and kindness. Therefore Miss Havisham listens to the advice of Pip and leaves a large legacy to Matthew and his son as a subsidy. As for Estella, on one hand, watching her stepdaughter grow up more and more beautiful, the idea of training her as a tool to revenge aroused in Miss Havisham’s mind. So Miss Havisham actively cultivates Estella and tells her how to lure a man but should not put in her own love. Miss Havisham ruthlessly watched her successful performance in social occasions; she was pleased to share the resuls. In this connection, she was mercilessly cruel. Besides , she loves Estella, the only relatvie she lived with. As a daughter brought up by her hands, Miss Havisham found her emotions were concrened about Estella. But she did not know that her inappropriate behavior had already distorted their relationship. Therefore when she wanted to take sincere love from Estella, there would be the only disappointment. There Miss Havisham is a passionate, honest and ordinary women worthy of sympathy. She is also the coexistence of these two feelings, but her different personality is the product in different circumstances. She always exaggerated her pain, but she fell in the genuine suffering-she gave up the love of all people, including her stepdaughter and herself. As she made in the face of Pip,“Pip my dear! Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more…and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.” Miss Havisham is also very proud, just as Herbert said to Pip“Miss Havisham was a spoilt child…Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his daughter.” It was the pride that hurt her. Because of her pride, she discarded the advice of relatives and idolized her lover perfectly; and also because of her pride, she couldn’t accept the tragic love. So she refused to accept other people’s sympathy and help, instead, she hid in the darkness of closed minds. “When she recovered from a bad illness that she had , she laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since looked upon the light of day.” Since then, her enthusiasm and love of life has stopped with time, then she started lying fallow in the heart. But on the other hand, although she lived in a darl life, her warm feelings were plucking her anger now and then. Behind her proud facade, there was a vulnerable soul. Her room was maintained intact things as her wedding day: the wedding cake in a central table, she always wearing a wedding dress. This showed that she always ruminating the sweet and bitter of thelove. Sh said, “What real love is . It is blind devotion, unquestioning self humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world , giving up your whole heart and soul to the smites—as I did!” These words have explained the reasons of her status quo. Based in her dual character, she only suffered the pain and anger in love. Then one day she has finally come to realize the feelings of the past and realized herself. “Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done'” In fact, Miss Havisham is not aware o fher owns dual character. She has resented her being abandoned by the lover and clings to her way of life. This not only ruined her normal life, but also ruined her stepdaughter Estella and Pip who loved Estella. Thus it seems that Miss Havisham is a hateful image, but in fact her revenge action cannot hide her kindness. She was very kind to Pip and arranged for his future. All in all, Miss Havisham is a lifelike image because of the complexity and richness of her character. 5.2 the reflection of Miss Havisham’s Character The pain in Miss Havisham’s heart deeply shackles her and makes her increasely haggard and almost crazy. All of this is fully reflected on the environment of Satis House and her werid behavior. 5.2.1 the environment of Satis House In Satis House, Dicken creates magnificant seeting whose various elements symbolize many themes of the book. On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress become an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. Finally , the crumbing , dilapideted stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants. Through the eyes of the hero Pip, Dickens shows us the bleakness and decadence of the Satis House. Pip felt the darkness and decadence of this house when he went there the first time. And when he went there the second time, the description of the house in the book gave us a stronger feeling of gloomy and suppressed. “…the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air, like our own marsh mist.” There the clearer air Pip felt was the impression the house had given us. The comparison between the clearer air and marsh mist reflects an atmosphere of stuffiness. The fire, which was to go out, predicts the death of Miss Havisham. The portryal of the house displays the darkness in her heart. She refused to enjoy the life but suffer greatly for her revenge. In the last chapter of this book, Pip went to the Satis House the last time when Miss Havisham had died. This time we see that the description has some differences. “there was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough fence, and, looking over, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin” There the asmosphere was not as gloomy as before, instead, there was a little hopefulness appeared, which displayed that the darkness and decadence of Satis House was because of Miss Havisham. It was the pain in her heart caused that the entire manor dark and had no vitality. Environment reflects mood. Through the description of the surroundings we could feel Miss Havisham’ s suffering and her despair. 5.2.2 the behavior of Miss Havisham From Miss Havisham’ behavior, we can deeply feel her love and her hatred. The pain has penetrated her heart and unable to be eliminated forever. So her strange demeanor and her unforgettable. When Pip saw Miss Havisham for the first time her clothing made him feel strange. “I saw that everything within my view which ought to ba white, had been white long ago, and had lost its luster, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress,and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone”. This description depicts the image of a strange woman, but also that she has the dim light of life. Miss Havisham played a great shock to readers. As Miss Havisham was born in aristocratic family, readers expect to see the magnificant residence and a bright lady. In fact they have seen the picture completely different from their imagination. And more surprisingly the heroine appeared with bridal dress, which puzzled readers. It is exactly in this kind if curiousity; the readers opened the evil of Miss Havisham and saw a real-life situation of the tragic figure. This description also suggests that despite the passage of time, Miss Havisahm’s pain in her heart is not alleviated. She reminded herself, through the peculiar clothing, to revenge to all the men in the world. This is a female elegy. In male-dominated society, the status of women is tragic , and they are fragile in nature. They lack the ability to fight when they face their destiny and lack the self-rescuing capability when they are in deep trouble. Thus they meekly accept everything or launch retaliatory actions, but the result is often hurting no others than destoring themselves. A woman, when she loses the motivation and objectives of existance, living is tantamount to the dead. Miss Havisham’s talk more embodies this point. When Pip went to the Satis House for the first time Miss Havisham then said to him,“I am tired, I want diversion, and I have done with men and women.” This reflects the boredom of her life, and also reflects her negative emotion. She poured all her love in Compeyson, but the result deception and ridicule. When a woman’s spirit is collapsed, it will be displayed in her psychology and behavior coorespondingly. In short, looking at Miss Havisham’ life experience it deserves our sympathy and thoughts. For such a tragic woman, when analyzing her strange actions, various factors should be considered. Of all the factors, personal factors are the most important. 6 conclusion Judging from these above-mentioned factors, it can conclude that Dickens is a great master in portraying great literary images. By describing the image of Miss Havisham, Dickens has showed us the contraditions and the conflicts of the capitalist society in Victorian era. He has exposed the corruption of money in the upper-society. Through the analysis of society, family and Miss Hanisham herself, it reveals the weak position of women. Dickens portrayed the traditional image of woman, the “Angel in the houde” from a different perspective. From this paper, it tells that in the male-centered society, women should be self-respective, self-confident, self-reliant and self-developed; otherwise women would be in the subordinate status forever, or even suffer from self-deconstruction.