Havisham Review - 1315 Words

Havisham Havisham is a 16 line and four stanza poem with four lines making up each stanza. This poem shows the nature of an old woman after being devastated after being left at her wedding day and having lost her fortune to the man who left her. The four stanza poem is a harsh reflection of anger, pain, and disbelief; it’s a sad tale of a wedding and life gone horribly wrong that still haunts the character. In my review, I will explore the poem through each line and comment on the literary terms and the meaning of each line. The title of the poem is very important in understanding the poem. The title is the name of a character from Charles Dickens’ famous book called Great Expectations. Ms. Havisham is an eccentric character from†¦show more content†¦In line 10, Ms. Havisham says â€Å"Some nights better, the lost body over me,† this is clearly a sexual connotation with Ms. Havisham feeling erotic by his thoughts, she calls him a body rather than him over me and that is the feeling she has for him. Lines 11 and 12 are clearly sexual connotations as Ms. Havisham describes what she does to the body with my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear then down till I suddenly bite awake. These lines describe the thoughts Ms. Havisham has at some nights however also shows how she has depersonalized the fiancà © and just uses his body. She bites awake however that is very ambiguous and it could have several different connotations. Carol Ann Duffy uses another enjambment at the end of line 1 2 as she ends the stanza with â€Å"Love’s† which prompts the reader to read the last stanza. In line 13, â€Å"Love’s hate behind a white veil† is a paradox used by Carol Ann Duffy. There are two ways to read this either as love is hate behind a white veil which would mean they are the same thing or Love’s hate behind a white veil which would mean that the hate that belongs to love is behind a white veil and it is not clear which one is used in the poem. There is another metaphor used in â€Å"a red balloon bursting in my face.† this metaphor represents love as floating around in theShow MoreRelatedSymbolic References in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens1017 Words   |  5 PagesHouse, the home of the wealthy dowager Miss Havisham, who is extremely eccentric: she wears an old wedding dress everywhere she goes and keeps all the clocks in her house stopped at the same time. During his visit, he meets a beautiful young girl named Estella, who treats him coldly and contemptuously. Nevertheless, he falls in love with her and dreams of becoming a wealthy gentleman so that he might be worthy of her. 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Pip of Great Expectations is torn between the coarse and common (Dickens 155) world that he was born in and the world that Estella and Ms. Havisham inhabit which is full of wealth, grandeur, and mystery. Once Pip sees this new world, he becomes disgusted with [his] calling and with [his] life (Dickens 155) as an apprentice to Joe. However, the world of wealth and status is also strange for