Miss Havisham is a character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place". Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-thirties at the start of the novel. However, it is indicated in the novel that her long life away from the sunlight has aged her.
Character history
Miss Havisham's father was a wealthy brewer and her mother died shortly after she was born. Her father later remarried and had a son, Arthur, with the household cook. Although they grew up together, Miss Havisham's relationship with her half-brother was not harmonious. She inherited most of her father's fortune and fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who conspired with the jealous Arthur to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin, Matthew Pocket, warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. On the wedding day, while she was dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realised he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar. Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table, and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine: the exact time when she had received Compeyson's letter. Time passed and Miss Havisham had her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, adopt a daughter for her.
From protection to revenge
While Miss Havisham's original goal was to prevent Estella from suffering as she had at the hands of a man, it changed as Estella grew older: While Estella was still a child, Miss Havisham began casting about for boys who could be a testing ground for Estella's education in breaking the hearts of men as vicarious revenge for Miss Havisham's pain. Pip, the narrator, is the eventual victim; and Miss Havisham readily dresses Estella in jewels to enhance her beauty and to exemplify all the more the vast social gulf between her and Pip. When, as a young adult, Estella leaves for France to receive education, Miss Havisham eagerly asks him, "Do you feel you have lost her?"
Repentance and death
Miss Havisham repents late in the novel when Estella leaves to marry Pip's rival, Bentley Drummle; and she realises that 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. Miss Havisham begs Pip for forgiveness. After Pip leaves, Miss Havisham's dress catches on fire from her fireplace. Pip rushes back in and saves her. However, she has suffered severe burns to the front of her torso, up to the throat. The last words she speaks in the novel are to Pip, referencing both Estella and a note she, Miss Havisham, has given him with her signature: "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'" A surgeon dresses her burns, and says that they are "far from hopeless". However, despite rallying for a time, she dies a few weeks later, leaving Estella as her chief beneficiary, and a considerable sum to Herbert Pocket's father, as a result of Pip's reference.
Claimed prototypes
of Newtown, Sydney, was said to have been jilted by her groom on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in a darkened house, her rotting wedding cake left as it was on the table, and with her front door kept permanently ajar in case her groom ever returned. She was widely considered at the time to be Dickens' model for Miss Havisham, although this cannot be proven. In the 1965 Penguin edition, Angus Calder notes at Chapter 8 that "James Payn, a minor novelist, claimed to have given Dickens the idea for Miss Havisham – from a living original of his acquaintance. He declared that Dickens's account was 'not one whit exaggerated'." It is documented Dickens encountered a wealthy recluse called Elizabeth Parker on whom it is widely believed he based the character, whilst staying in Newport, Shropshire, at the aptly named Havisham Court.
Alternative versions
Miss Havisham's Fire is an opera composed by Dominick Argento with a libretto by John Olon-Scrymgeour, based on Dickens' character. The entire story is told in flashback during an inquiry into Miss Havisham's death. The opera gives her first name as "Aurelia". Miss Havisham is a major character in the comic detective/mystery series of novels featuring Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde. The stories are set in a fantasy/alternate universe milieu, in which characters borrowed from classic literature play a prominent role. Ronald Frame's 2013 novel, Havisham, is a non-canonical story about Miss Havisham's early life. The story tells how Miss Havisham is the daughter of a brewer. The story tells of more than just the infamous trauma of being left behind by her fiancé and goes on with her taking charge of her family's business before descending into vengeful madness, adopting Estella, and arranging the meeting of Estella and Pip. A young version of Miss Havisham is portrayed by Tuppence Middleton in the 2015 BBC TV seriesDickensian. The series gives her the first name Amelia and references the period of her life in the months running up to her wedding. Satis House is relocated to London within the same community as other characters from novels by Dickens.
In film and television
In film adaptations of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham has been played by a number of actors, including:
Both Sunset Boulevard and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? were inspired by David Lean's adaptation of Great Expectations, as were, by extension, the characters of Norma Desmond and Baby Jane Hudson, and their homes.
In science
The condition of the "Miss Havisham effect" has been coined by scientists to describe a person who suffers a painful longing for lost love, which can become a physically addictive pleasure by activation of reward and pleasure centres in the brain, which have been identified to regulate addictive behaviour – regions commonly known to be responsible for craving and drug, alcohol and gambling addiction.
