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Wedding and Ann Duffy

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Wedding and Ann Duffy
Havisham

A poem in which the speaker's personality is gradually revealed is "Havisham" by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem is delivered in the persona of Miss Havisham, a character from Charles Dickens' novel, "Great Expectations". In the poem, Miss Havisham was cruelly stood-up on her wedding day by her fraudster fiancé, and as a result she stopped all the clocks, stayed in her wedding dress and left the wedding banquet out for decades. Miss Havisham's bitter and violent personality is revealed by Duffy's use of word choice, oxymoron, inversion and structure.
The poem is started by an oxymoron which conveys Miss Havisham's feelings towards her ex-fiancé. "Beloved Sweetheart Bastard". The words "Beloved" and "Sweetheart" have connotations of precious and loved so one would assume that Miss Havisham loves this person as you would use these words with someone you love. However, these words are in contrast with the harsh swear word "bastard". "Bastard" has connotations of an awful, repulsive man towards whom she only feels hatred. This shows that one aspect of Miss Havisham's personality is that she is bitter due to her heart being broken by this man. Miss Havisham's goes on to talk about the man that left her and says that "Not a day since then/ I haven't wished him dead." The writer's use of inversion emphasises that Miss Havisham thought about her ex-fiancé every single day for decades, since the day he left her on their wedding day. From this, Miss Havisham's harsh personality is revealed. Although she feels bitterness and hatred towards her ex-lover, she still cares about him so much that she is unable to forget about him. Also, another aspect of Miss Havisham's personality that is revealed is that she is a jealous woman. Miss Havisham is portrayed as being envious as she has "Dark green pebbles for eyes". Green is the colour of jealousy while dark is creating a dark and sinister atmosphere. Her eyes are also compared to "pebbles" which are stones. This
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