Character Analysis

There are several important characters throughout Great Expectations.  Miss Havisham, an old wealthy woman, is an extremely key character and plays an important role throughout the entire novel.  She might very well be one of the most creepy, revenge-seeking, and memorable characters ever created.

At the beginning of the book she starts as a very vengeful and evil old woman.  We learn that her future husband had abandoned her at the altar on their wedding day.  This is why she never took off her extravagant wedding dress and stopped all of the clocks at the time she found out he had left her. 

She adopted a little girl named Estella who she raises as her own and teaches her to never love a man and to taunt and cause pain to him.  The reasoning for this strange up bringing is because of Miss Havisham’s tragic past.  Pip is used as a boy to help train Estella, and to no surprise Pip immediately falls in love with her.

As we get farther into the book, Miss Havisham becomes fond of Pip.  She is aware that Pip believed that she was his benefactor and led him on even more to believe that to be true.  Although she begins as a scary, deceitful, old woman, towards the end of her life she does come to realize that what she has done is wrong.  In her old age Miss Havisham later apologizes to Pip and pleads at his feet for her forgiveness.  This is where the reader truly is able to observe the immense change, which has taken place throughout her life.  She has gone from one extreme to another, which has altered and changed her beliefs and views on life forever.