Preview

Great Expectations (revenge And How It Backfires In The Book)

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
951 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Great Expectations (revenge And How It Backfires In The Book)
In the Bible, God teaches us about revenge and how we should love and forgive one another. When Jesus is insulted and hurt in the bible, he does not take revenge but holds his temper. "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."� (1Peter 2:23) Charles Dickens teaches us in his novel, Great Expectations, that people who seek revenge on others often end up hurting themselves as well.

One person who finds herself getting hurt after she takes vengeance on others is Miss Havisham. After being left at the altar by a man named Compeyson, she vows to break all men's hearts. To aid her in this devious task, she adopts a girl named Estella. Miss Havisham raises Estella to break men's hearts and to be very cold hearted. Estella would criticize others by their looks and did not care about what others thought about her. When Pip, a blacksmith boy, is called to her house to play, Estella is very rude and says she does not want to play with him because he is a commoner. "With this boy! Why, he is a common laboring-boy!"� (Pg. 59) Miss Havisham, wanting to break all men's hearts, tells Estella she could break Pip's heart when she did not want to play with him. "Well? You can break his heart."� (Pg. 59) Miss Havisham raised Estella to break men's hearts by making them fall in love with her then dumping them in the end. Even though Miss havisham brought up Estella to break men's hearts her plan backfires on herself and is heartbroken by Estella. Miss Havisham and Estella get into an argument because Miss Havisham thinks she is tired of her. "Are you tired of me?"¦You stock and stone"¦you cold, cold heart."� (Pg. 299) This is unfair for Miss Havisham to say because she brought up Estella to be cold-hearted and uncaring to others. Estella, realizing that it is Miss Havisham's own fault for making her cold-hearted, defends herself saying she made her to be like that. "Do you

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Pip, the main character of Great Expectations, learns a great amount resulting from confusion in his life. His confusion is caused by his love for Estella, a beautiful and proper girl of the upper-class. Pip becomes intrigued by Estella the moment Ms. Havisham, Estella's guardian, has him over to visit. Ms. Havisham encourages and strengthens Pip's feeling for Estella by always reminding him of Estella's beauty and intelligence. As Pip grows older, his love for Estella never fades. Pip becomes confused when Estella makes him think that he may have a chance with her when in reality she doesn't love him at all. Estella is incapable of loving because Ms. Havisham taught her to hide her affection and love and to never open up to a man. Once Pip realizes that he will never…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Havisham

    • 650 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although Miss Havisham may seem very mournful and you feel sorry but as you read on you realise that she is actually very resentful sour and bitter. Further more this is because it may seem as though she is inviting him round to play with her niece as a diversion but in fact she is luring him into a trap to fall in love with estella and therefore can break his heart in exchange for Miss Havishams’s broken one, a heart for a heart. And once she is sissified she may live in peace.…

    • 650 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great expectations ch 1-7

    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages

    2. Briefly describe the convict. What evidence is there that the convict has "human" qualities and is not merely a criminal? The convict is a fearful man all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg, no hat, with broken shoes, and had an old rag tied around his head. The evidence that supports that the convict has human qualities is he somewhat shows compassion when seeing Pip’s dead parents so he does not rob him he just scares Pip and asks him to do a favor.…

    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Revenge, the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for their wrongdoings against another, is characterized as a corruption of the mind of the affected individual. Throughout the history of literature, countless authors have incorporated the theme of revenge into their works. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth seeks revenge on Minister Dimmesdale because of his crime committed with Hester. Similarly, in William Shakespeare’s, Othello, Iago devises an evil plan to avenge Othello of his rumored sin.…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poet wants us to sympathized Miss Havisham greatly, but not entirely. Her own trappings of her strong need to revenge and her morbid existence that has destroyed her carries a symbolic meaning of self – absorption and destruction. This poem introduces us to Miss Harvisham’s character, who has become a type of embittered woman who was disappointed in love and enjoys withdrawing from the world.…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Havisham

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Havisham' is a dramatic monologue written from the eyes of the infamous character Miss Havisham who is extracted from Dickens’s 'Great Expectations'. Miss Havisham is a very disturbing character for a number of different reasons conceived by the pain and hurt she has endured through out her life after being jilted at the altar many years before the poem is set. Through out Havisham we learn that there is more underlying problems to Havisham than what was once acknowledged. Hatred completely destroys Havisham and that instead of helping her to get revenge, it makes her worse which results in her hating all men.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Today our world is filled with hate. There are wars between countries and groups of people, there are unloving relationships, and there are countless hateful insults that people are called daily. Unfortunately, indirectly or directly, teenagers get caught up in a lot of these issues and can have a devastating impact and fill the individual with hate. This is common in high school especially with the diverse group of personalities and different types of people. Teens can completely forget who they actually are or who they are striving to be and begin to conform with societies hate. By completing the secret benefactor experiment, based off the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens', we will try and replace the hate with love and generosity.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dictionary.com states that revenge is “to exact punishment or expiation for a wrong on behalf of, especially in a resentful or vindictive spirit.” The novel, Frankenstein, and the play, Hamlet, are two works of literature that revolve around the notion of revenge. The main conflicts of the stories are Prince Hamlet attempting to avenge the murder of his father and Frankenstein’s monster hunting down Victor Frankenstein for abandoning him in an empty and lonely existence. The novels use other themes to tie together the underlying theme of revenge, such as death, madness, and learning and “un-learning.”…

    • 1716 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Havisham can be described as being someone who shows the world that she's only a strong person who doesn't care about the people around her by the way she acts towards the people around her. She brings herself to be someone who doesn't have the right way of thinking about the feelings and actions of the people around her. The perfect example of this is the idea that she was able to be perfectly fine leading Pip on during his time of need with the love he felt for Estella. Miss Havisham can only be someone who loves to manipulate the people around her by allowing them to believe that the things she can help them with all always be better with her help.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In stave 3 Dickens introduces two children called Ignorance and Want who are described as: ‘wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.’ This list of negative adjectives makes the reader empathise with the young children as they are innocent and haven’t chosen to live this saddening life. Dickens also used the adjectives scowling, wolfish’ to describe the children which is describing them as wolves and monsters, indicating that they have been neglected to live like savages. Poor people, throughout Dickens’ time, were expected to live a life of crime which also emphasises Dickens imagery of “savages.”…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is set in a time when revenge and violence were very common. We live today in what some would say, are very violent times. The reasons that people seek revenge and why they commit violence has not changed a lot in 500 years. Some reasons why people commit violence is for superiority, injustice, vulnerability, distrust and hopelessness.…

    • 527 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I believe that if one plans on being a successful person in society, setting goals is a very important step. Having goals not only gives you a clear focus on things, it also helps you to organize your plans by allowing you to give yourself time limits and boundaries. Expectations are a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Havisham has a snotty way of judging everybody, and putting her pain on someone else's shoulders. For example, she wants Estella to be exactly like her and doesn't let her own daughter live the way she wants to, Miss Havisham sets standards and obligations for Estella's each and every move. Miss Havisham herself was abandoned at the alter, and since then has frozen time at the exact hour before her marriage. She is one of the characters who are created to show to readers how all they do is feel misery and wish misery upon everyone else. She could have a lot, but instead she makes up lies for Pip, rules for Estella, and nothing to change her own sad and depressing future, so you see how people give up their entire lives so…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example, when Pip took Estella to Havisham's house, Estella displays her true feelings about her life and Miss Havisham. Estella blames Miss Havisham for her misery . This shows that even though Estella had wealth as a child, money can not buy everything and in Estella's case money could not make up for the void of affection in her life. More importantly, Estella ended up marrying Drummle not because she loved him, but married him because she was bored of her life. This shows that even though she was wealthy, the money she had could not buy her true affection she sought for. Lastly, at the end of the novel, Estella full of inherited wealth, explained to Pip how she was never happy with her life because of the fact that Miss Havisham raised her with a ‘Heart of stone". This showed that even with her wealth Estella still lead a relatively miserable…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Havisham as shown encourages Estella to entrap Pip and break his heart. One may not exactly think that there is a “trap” if Havisham adopts someone and one thing is to break hearts. The trap is then hidden and would take someone really smart to see it right away. In this case then Ms. Havisham wants Pip to love Estella so a reader could think she feels bad but really it could be so there could be a further act of cruelty committed. "Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces–and as it gets older and stronger–it will tear deeper–love her, love her, love her!" What this looks like is that it is a sketchy thing she’d like Pip to do and one could think that this is another act of cruelty. Overall what can be made from this is that one honestly does not have the right to treat someone like how Ms. Havisham did. Just because someone has hurt you doesn’t mean you get to treat them that way. Especially setting them up to someone else to be broken. You would never have someone assist you it is just vile, nasty, disgusting. It does just show that this type person has no breaks of any kind. No moral breaks whatsoever. This behavior could inflict dire consequences on the person in which is committing acts like these. Worst consequence is death. This shows that when you have fire going and are too close one can experience severe pain. Karma still exists no matter where at even in literature one will see it. Pip just could not save her in good…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays