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

In Great Expectations, Is drop Havisham crazy and/or evil?The mad,eccentric and improbably peculiar Miss Havisham,a wealthydowager who lives in an old, rotting mansion secluded from the outside mankind is certainly one of the most memorable creations in the nurseGreat Expectations written by Charles Dickens.From the first introductory scene on encountering Miss Havishamscharacter it is immediately clear that she is supposed to leave alasting impression on the reader.Dickens uses a vast variety of imagery and word choice to describe theappearance of the house in which Miss Havisham lives . Satis house,asit was c in alled, emits an ominous presence with its old brick walled upwindows and many iron bars.This exceeds the sense that outsiders wherenot constitutionally welcome and rarely visited.The room in which she sat was vividly described as dark with noglimpse of daylight.. to be seen and furnished with many old andunrecognisable objects .The vivid setting is emphasised by the y oung personboy,Pip, who narrates this entire experience and describes MissHavisham at first as the strangest lady I have ever seen or shallever see..The cause or her infrequency? A single, tragic event which was to takeover Miss Havishams life for ever.Her life is defined by the jiltingof her fiance and lover Compeyson and from that moment forth herworld has been one based around heartbreak and betrayel thus, castingherself away from the realms of reality. From the exact moment in timewhen she first learnt Compeyson was gone, the old woman stopped allthe clocks from ticking and fixed them at twenty minutes to nine. Thislinks into her somewhat dishevelled appearance at a first glance for unless one shoe was upon her f... ...her parting from her.In conclusion Miss Havisham was neither crazy, nor was she evil. Shewas mentally ill, driven to insanity with love and pain, with nobodyto care for her. She was a disoriented lady, with nowhere to turntherefore, she created her own fictiona l world where nothing changedand her own experience of emotional betrayal cast a prolonging shadowover her entire life. Dickens illustrates the fact that interpersonaland family relationships are forever changing, as remaining still onlyleads to tragedy. Her character draws in the reader as her peculiarityis mysterious, fire and somewhat chilling as she is just thatlittle bit different. Charles Dickens uses an exceptionally vastamount of word choice and word imagery to give us this unforgettableimpression of one of the most memorable characters ever created inEnglish literature.