Great Expectations - Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are Living through

Great Expectations - Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are Living through Others In the work Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, two characters live their lives through someone else. Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are both elderly and though someone else are able to obtain their goals that they are not able to complete themselves. Abel Magwitch lives his life through the protagonist Pip while Miss Havisham lives her life through the character Estella. Miss Havisham is an aged, mysterious lady who has much anger. This anger derives from her fiancÃÆ' ©e leaving the day of the wedding. This is the moment when she "stopped living" and decides to turn to a life of making other men miserable, just as her ex-fiancÃÆ' ©e had made her unhappy. However, Miss Havisham is too old to be able to hurt other men, so she decides to raise a child. Miss Havisham put Estella in such an environment where all Estella's compassionate feelings were erased and made very dull. Miss Havisham's influence also made Estella feel no remorse for those she hurt. Estella tells Miss Havisham, "If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry?" (307). When Estella refers to the light and the dark she is referring to the light as love and compassion and the dark as the cruelty and the sense of a "stone heart." Estella, even as a young woman, cannot see or feel love because Miss Havisham has manipulated her to be just as she wanted, relentless and cold. Moreover, this personality allows Estella to ... .... When fighting with Miss Havisham, Estella says, "Only a little tired of myself." (305). It is later obvious that Estella is tired of not being happy and not being able to have any true feelings. Even though Estella and Pip were given everything they ever wanted, neither of them got fulfillment and true love from their guardians and both ended up being very melancholy. Dickens' point is to show the reader that people need more then just materialistic things to live and be happy; they need love and need to be able to feel compassion and love. This book can be considered a commentary on how the social system is misjudged because the people of the higher lifestyles are not necessarily happy even though they have most material things. This idea is important because it shows what is really needed to be happy and that is love and being able to be compassionate. Great Expectations - Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are Living through Great Expectations - Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are Living through Others In the work Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, two characters live their lives through someone else. Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch are both elderly and though someone else are able to obtain their goals that they are not able to complete themselves. Abel Magwitch lives his life through the protagonist Pip while Miss Havisham lives her life through the character Estella. Miss Havisham is an aged, mysterious lady who has much anger. This anger derives from her fiancÃÆ' ©e leaving the day of the wedding. This is the moment when she "stopped living" and decides to turn to a life of making other men miserable, just as her ex-fiancÃÆ' ©e had made her unhappy. However, Miss Havisham is too old to be able to hurt other men, so she decides to raise a child. Miss Havisham put Estella in such an environment where all Estella's compassionate feelings were erased and made very dull. Miss Havisham's influence also made Estella feel no remorse for those she hurt. Estella tells Miss Havisham, "If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylightà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry?" (307). When Estella refers to the light and the dark she is referring to the light as love and compassion and the dark as the cruelty and the sense of a "stone heart." Estella, even as a young woman, cannot see or feel love because Miss Havisham has manipulated her to be just as she wanted, relentless and cold. Moreover, this personality allows Estella to ... .... When fighting with Miss Havisham, Estella says, "Only a little tired of myself." (305). It is later obvious that Estella is tired of not being happy and not being able to have any true feelings. Even though Estella and Pip were given everything they ever wanted, neither of them got fulfillment and true love from their guardians and both ended up being very melancholy. Dickens' point is to show the reader that people need more then just materialistic things to live and be happy; they need love and need to be able to feel compassion and love. This book can be considered a commentary on how the social system is misjudged because the people of the higher lifestyles are not necessarily happy even though they have most material things. This idea is important because it shows what is really needed to be happy and that is love and being able to be compassionate.