Miss Havisham In Carol Ann Duffy's Great Expectations

“Havisham” by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy stems from the book “Great Expectations” by esteemed author Charles Dickens. The poem tells the tale of Miss Havisham, a woman who was left at the altar, and the inevitable grief and anger she felt in the succeeding years. Duffy fully explores the topic with several instances of cleverly used literary techniques.

Immediately Duffy depicts the abandoned woman’s mixed emotions and her struggle to distinguish between such intense feelings of love and hatred for the man who betrayed her. A dramatic opening is created with “Beloved sweetheart bastard”. An oxymoron is created as “beloved” and “sweetheart” are pet names used for a lover while “bastard” is a harsh insult that would be said with the intent to hurt someone. This contradiction portrays Miss Havisham’s conflicted feelings and introduces

Miss Havisham has no strength or motivation to move on. She displays an animalistic attitude towards the house she lives in, creating the idea of her growing sick of her home. Like an exotic animal in an enclosure, Miss Havisham is caged. This whole concept’s impact is solidified on the reader through the word choice of “Nooooo”, an elongated vowel. This suggests that the pain goes on and on and never stops, and “cawing” compares her to a crow. Just as crows represent death, so too is Miss Havisham old and wilting away.

We are also faced with Havisham’s unfulfilled sexual desires. In those days, a woman was expected to wait to be intimate with a man until marriage or else they would be demonised and chastised. Her social class only exemplifies this since she comes from a wealthy, upper class family. Most nights Havisham is overwhelmed with her sexual frustration:

“the lost body over me, my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear then down till I suddenly bite