Great Expectations and Miss Havisham's Description

Brief Synopsis

Great Expectations is a story that follows Pip as he grows up from being a working class blacksmith to a gentleman living in London. Along the way he meets Miss Havisham who, after being so emotionally destroyed by her husband to-be not showing up to their wedding, hates all men and has trained her adopted daughter, Estella, to be emotionless and to break men's hearts. Miss Havisham introduces Estella to Pip and, as Miss Havisham had planned, Pip falls in love with her. After meeting her, all Pip focuses on is trying to be good enough for cold-hearted Estella and the story goes on to show how Pip suffers as he pursues his love.

Miss Havisham, Book Description

'..the strangest lady I have even seen, or shall ever see.'

'She was dressed in rich materials - satins, lace, and silks - all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on - the other was on the table near her hand - her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.'

'I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, 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 that brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young women, and that the figure upon which it now ing loose, had shrunk to skin and bone.'

'"You're not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?"'

'..a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement.'

'..waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me.'

'..her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine..'

'..I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it up.'

'.. I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the show upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at her foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still of objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud.'

'corpse-like .. the drillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper.'

'Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings.'

'..she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.'

'She was not physically strong..'

'"I am yellow skin and bone."'

'"It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me."'

'..she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around, in a state to crumble under a touch.'

'..in the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness..'

'..old restless fingers..'

'..I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that mysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house..'

'"The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote a letter -"
"Which she received," I struck in, "when she was dressing for her marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?"..
.."she has never since looked upon the light of day."'

'..her greedy look..'

'..her withered arms..'

'..thin arm..'

'..he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat and drink..
I considered, and said, "Never."
"And never will, Pip," he retorted, with a frowning smile. "She has never allowed herself to be seen doing either.."'

'..witch-like eagerness..'

'..her other hand on the crutch stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre.'

'..darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden from the sun.'

'..her own awful figure with its ghostly reflection..'

'..cobwebs from the centre-piece.. crawling of the spiders on the cloth.. tracks of the mice.. gropings and pausings of the beetles on the floor.'

'"your face was strange and frightened me!"' - Estella

'..her gray hair..'

'Miss Havisham's fray hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.'

'..in a ghostly manner, making a low cry.'

'..Miss Havisham's wasting hands.'

'..she was rather confused.'

'..her haggard face..'

'..striking her stick upon the floor, and flashing into wrath..'

'"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practice on the susceptibility of a poor boy.."' - Pip

'There was an air of utter loneliness upon her..'

'"But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?"' - Miss Havisham

'..she stretched out her tremulous right hand..'

'She set her hand upon her stick, in the resolute way that sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of forcing herself to attend.'

'To see her with her white hair and her worn face..'

'..her profound unfitness for this earth..'

'..her old ghastly bridal appearance..'