“Havisham” – Analysis 

Havisham is presented as a dramatic monologue to most readers because of how the speaker is a speaker who already has a narrative, written in Dickens’ novel ‘Great Expectations’. In the novel, the character is portrayed as a frail and weak women who exists as a being of utter eldritch and bleakness. Duffy however, shows the character of ‘Miss Havisham’ in quite a contrasting light than Dickens, as she is presented as more angry.

Title/Context

To a reader that hasn’t heard of ‘Great Expectations’ and hasn’t had any knowledge on the character already, they will see the title of the poem and assume it’s a bout a male character. This may be because historically male figures are addressed by people by their surname and what the men of their family name has achieved. Women are always referred to as ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ in front of their surname. This means that a women’s position would be determined by their marital status. Duffy doesn’t title her poem ‘Miss Havisham’ because it emphasises how women are more than just their marital status (Duffy later writes a collection of poems called “The World’s Wife” in which gives the wives of famous male figures a voice and their own name). Duffy uses as this as the title to show that just because Havisham was ‘jilted’ on her wedding day, doesn’t mean that she is somewhere between a Miss and a Mrs, she is not actually either and a women can have their own role and reputation without the bounds of marriage.

First Stanza 

“Beloved Sweetheart bastard”

The oxymoron creates an immediate impact, showing us that Havisham has conflicting views towards her ex fiancée.

“wished him dead”

“Prayed for it so hard I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes”

She wants him to no longer exist, as long as he exists she suffers. Her eyes envy the version of her that she sees during her prays, she is jealous of the Havisham that she sees killing him while praying.

“ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with”

Creates the imagery of bulging veins on her hands. Jokes about how they’re so thick that she could use them as ropes, making a mockery of her elderliness, but also showing how after all these years she still wants to hurt him. “could” shows how she physically can’t hurt him because her frail old age is restricting her, she is trapped by her elderliness.

Second Stanza

“Spinster. I stink and remember”

An unmarried women is all she sees herself as. She stinks of that. It’s noticeable about her and she remembers that it’s all his fault that she is seen as nothing but a spinster.

“cawing Nooooo”

Anamorphic image of her as a helpless bird. She has been hurt so bad that she is no longer human, she feels like a caged bird, caged by her overpowering emotions and memories.

“the dress yellowing”

The dress was once white, so she was once pure and lived as an innocent youth. However, through time she has been developed impurities (yellowed) and perhaps broken as a person.

“trembling if I open the wardrobe”

Scared to change, scared to move on for fear of being hurt once again in the same way.

“the slewed mirror”

The reflection she sees of herself isn’t completely clear, it’s slewed or slanted, to show how she has almost lost her identity in a way.

Third Stanza

“Puce curses”

Puce is synonymous to a maroon colour, or a dirty crimson. This colour might have connotations to violence and morbidity, which may be how Havisham now wants to treat him. Also the French etymology of the word is ‘insect’ or ‘flea’. Indicating that her being a spinster has belittled her, or that she sees her ex lover as a bug that she wants to kill.

“Some nights better, the lost body over me”

Imagines her lover over her, but now has juxtaposing feelings towards him because some nights are good with him when she imagines him over her, whereas previously in the poem she doesn’t feel anything even near this kind of thought. Also, she tries to proclaim him (“body”) as something that she once owned until losing him.

“fluent tongue”

Havisham thinks about him very often, thinks about what she would’ve had if it wasn’t for his actions. 

“It’s”

Objectifying him. He’s an ‘it’, as if he is a beast of some sort that hurt her. She might now see him as an object because she felt objectified by the way in which he left Havisham at their own wedding. As if throwing a piece of paper in the bin is a euphemism for their wedding.

“Bite”

The words puce and bite together create quite a violent and supernatural image. Perhaps symbolising how her ex fiancée has a vampiric image, he sucked her blood, he sucked the life out of her.

Fourth Stanza

“Love’s 

hate behind a white veil”

The structural technique here is clearly enjambment. It shows how she pauses to try to think of what else she feels towards her lover other than love. This also discreetly shows how people associate love with happiness, but the hate, the struggles, and the complications that come with love are hidden. Hidden by the novelty of marriages and weddings. Love is seen as pure, but this “white veil” of purity coverts the hate that can come with it.

“Bang. I stabbed at a wedding cake”

Onomatopoeia is used for dramatic effect. The verb stab creates the image that she is associating the cake with a person, her lover of course. A different interpretation of this line is once again linked to the theme of age. A person would ‘cut’ a cake, but she is so weak that for her it’s like stabbing. Despite her fragility she still has the motivation to treat something with violence, if she metaphorically sees that something (the cake) as her ex.

“Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon”

Graphic imagery to suggest that if she couldn’t marry him, that she may as well kill him. A different interpretation is that being left at the alter killed her and led her to live a long slow life in which she emotionally rotted. Now she wants a partner that mirrors her image, so that she doesn’t feel so misunderstood or lonely, and that she wants a long slow honeymoon to make up for the pain that her ex caused.

“b-b-b-breaks.”

From the first interpretation of the previous analysis, we can assume that Havisham believes the only way to rid her of this anger and brokenness is to kill her husband. Her saying that it isn’t just the heart that breaks, perhaps implies that she can break him in much more ways than just emotionally, that she could kill him and it would cure her. However the stutter at the end shows that despite wanting to end him, she also doesn’t, because a part of her still loves him and cares about him. Also, the fact that she is even thinking about hurting him is creating a sense of guilt within her conscious, and the distortion of the word ‘breaks’ suggest she’s so overcome with this guilt that she has started to cry.