Great Expectations : Miss Havisham

In the book Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens this is how Pip (the boy from the forge) describes Miss Havisham.

"She was dressed in rich materials - satin's and 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." - Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"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 women, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone." - Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

Pip also goes on to saying how he'd once seen a waxwork at a fair and had also seen a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress and how those two events reminded him of Miss Havisham, as in she looked like a dead person with dark eyes.

After Reading the book I decided to look at visual adaptations of Great Expectations. I came across the BBC version of the book. Below is a clip where Pip meets Miss Havisham for the first time.

In the BBC version the actress who plays Miss Havisham is Gillian Anderson. she portrays her as both tragic and overcome with revenge against men. She is seen as a ghostly tortured, jilted bride to be, throughout the film her white hair is matted and she wears the same shredded wedding dress.




Websites Used:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16047263

Books Used:

• Dickens,C. (2008) Great Expectations (Vintage  Classics). United Kingdom: Vintage Classics. (Dickens, 2008, pp. 52 -54).