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

    Without revenge Estella would not be the cold, feeling-less character in the novel. “ That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex” (Dickens 104). Miss Havisham's revenge not only brought despair upon others, she also hurt herself in creating Estella. Also, the result from Compeyson’s revenge on Magwitch results in both characters dieing. This demonstrates that revenge causes harm not only to oneself and others, but it does not bring real happiness to the people who seek…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 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

    "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë is a forbidden love story that has a loveless controversial marriage and a "love after death" scenario. Brontë shows emotions in her novel that force characters to do things that are not a "traditional" behavior for a person. Although the main theme throughout "Wuthering Heights" is love, it is equally based on revenge. Examples of that revenge are mainly between the characters Heathcliff and Hindley. For example, when Hindley decided to make Heathcliff's life a living hell it caused Heathcliff to plan revenge on Hindley. Additionally, when Hindley became so fed up, he wanted to murder Heathcliff and also wanted his soul and blood.…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 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

    Taking revenge reveals that the love of Jesus Christ is not a powerful force in our lives.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Expectations Essay

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The character Estella is seen in more of a mental prison in which she cannot love and express her feelings to anyone. Miss Havisham has raided Estella not to love any man for her own revengeful reasons and so she cannot sympathize with Pip or any man that loves her. This makes Estella so miserable that she treats Miss Havisham coldly and with hate. This causes Miss Havisham to ask why she is…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 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

    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

    The humiliation and hurt Miss Havisham suffers at the hand of Compeyson causes her to coach her adopted daughter, Estella, in the many ways to break a man's heart. Incapable of doing it herself from her weakened and aging position, she uses Estella as her weapon of revenge.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • 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
  • Better Essays

    Macbeth Gender Roles

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages

    It is also an important factor to many elements in Great Expectations, such as Pip’s story and character, Estella’s personality and future relationship with Pip, and so on. She does not have the best relationship with men, which stemmed from the man who she was supposed to marry but quickly he took off on their wedding money once he got a hold of her money, and this tore her apart. Based on her experiences, she thought it would be a good idea to raise her adopted daughter, Estella, in seclusion and to have a cold heart that cannot love. She was soon proved wrong, once Estella grew up and became aware of how Miss Havisham was treating her all these years. She also thought it was a good idea to trick Pip into thinking that she was his benefact, making him believe that she plans on having him marry Estella. But, again, was proved wrong, once Pip found out about about her plans. And they were anything but forgiving to Miss Havisham when they found out about what she’s been doing to them for all those years. She feels horrible and guilty for what she’s done, tries to get Pip to forgive her, and is engulfed in flames by a nearby lit fire. She later dies without being able to really redeem herself, like Lady Macbeth. The amount of stress Miss Havisham and Lady Macbeth had to deal with throughout, led them to do a number of things that they immediately…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Havisham's hatred of men and it is through her that Miss Havisham is able to…

    • 2499 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss Havisham also begins as a "vixenish" character, who trained Estella to be the girl she's growing up to be, and delights in the way Estella break Pip's heart. Dickens justifies her actions by later explaining that Miss Havisham was jilted by her lover minutes before their marriage, and from then on hated men, wishing to hurt them as they did her, and although we dislike her actions and see her as vixenish, the audience is positioned to feel sorry for her.…

    • 535 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
  • Good Essays

    How Is Pip Alike

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Pipstella "That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been" (Dickens 75). This is an excerpt from Charles Dickens' acclaimed novel, Great Expectations, throughout the story, readers follow Pip's narration, a once coarse and common boy whose change in fortune allows him to become a gentleman. As Pip visits Satis House, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Estella, becomes the object of adolescent Pip's affection.…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays