Havisham Poem - Carol Ann Duffy

For my transformation I choose the novel ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens and transformed it into a poem that targets the attitude and pain of the main character Miss Havisham. One of my main attempts was to focus on her loneliness and bitter personality. I wanted to grasp these points in particular to show the links between her attitude and hatred towards men and the world around her. She has a vengeful side which is portrayed in her violent language ‘stab’ and ‘death’. Her attitude towards men and how it has changed over time is a key and central theme of the novel and something I have taken and embraced within my transformation.
Dickens as one of the first and greatest urban novelists of the Victorian era aimed to reform and improves society through his writing. He was most famous for being able to capture and express a vivid image, especially of his characters through his thorough descriptions and attention to fine detail. Dickens was said to have an encyclopaedic knowledge and described his own mind as a ‘highly sensitive photographic plate’. It’s context like this that allowed me to interpret the depiction of Miss Havisham as a ‘lonely’, ‘bitter’ women with ‘pebbles for eyes’. Metaphors like these allowed me to project Dickens original thoughts and style of writing into a poem which showed her attitude and idea of self pity.
To make a poem successful you must adhere to the conventions associated with the genre. Therefore, I used stereotypical features throughout. This poem is spoken by Miss Havisham, a lonely, spinster character from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Because the poem is being spoken by a character, I wrote it in the style of a dramatic monologue which gave me the opportunity to delve into this character's mind and speak in her voice.
Familiarity with the book helped me understand that Miss Havisham is referring to her former fiancé in these lines. He dumped her on the morning of their wedding day and swindled her out of all her