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Destructive Women in Great Expectations

Destructive Women in Great Expectations

There are a number of women in Charles Dickens tale of love and revenge, Great Expectations. The two most significant of these are Miss Havisham, a wealthy and embittered old woman, and the beautiful young woman, Estella, who Miss Havisham schools in the art of breaking male hearts to exact her revenge for being jilted. However, even PipÆs harsh, older sister mistreats him. In short, though Estella is manipulated by Miss Havisham to injure she represents the harshest destruction of PipÆs ôgreat expectations.ö

From his elder sister, along with her kindly blacksmith husband, who raises Pip with a ôhard and heavy hand,ö to Miss Havisham and Estella, PipÆs great expectations of life and love are destroyed by destructive women (Dickens 13). Throughout the novel, Dickens uses a number of rhetorical devices like figurative language to underscore the theme of the potential destruction wreaked by women on men. Miss HavishamÆs betrothed who wishes to rob her of her fortune, ends up being destroyed by nightmarish visions and jilts her. Joe, a kindly man, is beaten down by his wife, PipÆs sister who remains cold and harsh, often beating Pip with such a hand. Joe will eventually find solace in a less destructive second wife. Miss Havisham admits she has purposively turned EstellaÆs heart to ice at one point, explaining she has taken EstellaÆs ôheart away and put ice in its placeö (Dickens 370).

As Robert Alter (130) estimates, ôDickensàis above all the great master of figurative language in English after Shakespeare.ö Indeed, in various places throughout the novel figurative language is employed by Dickens to reinforce his theme of the destructive force of women on men. PipÆs expectations are undermined a number of times in the novel, particularly his discovery of his benefactor, a man of low origins, and his discovery that Miss Havisham has purposively raised Estella to ...

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Destructive Women in Great Expectations. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:21, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710394.html