Charles Dickens, Great Expectations - Essay Example

The character Estella in the ic book Great Expectations is like that of an iron maiden who attracts the love of her life by inflicting cruelty through manipulation and emotional trauma to Pip ( the main character and Estella’s love interest). The name Estella has a French origin, meaning “star”. The setting of this novel is Victorian England, where Dicken’s portrayed Estella as a well-educated lady who belongs to the upper-class society. As early as the age of three, she was raised by a bitter, rich woman named Miss Havisham instead of her father Magwitch since he was imprisoned.

It would be incomplete to describe Estella’s character without mentioning the circumstances that surrounded Miss Havisham’s life since her rich personal experience molded the dark character of Estella.Miss Havisham raised Estella in a manner that is cold, devoid of emotions, and somewhat sarcastic. In fact, Estella’s agenda is to torture and break men’s hearts since this is the agenda of Miss Havisham towards men after she was abandoned at the marriage altar herself. During that conservative Victorian period , it was a deep misfortune to be jilted during your wedding day.

Although Mrs.Havisham wealth was not diminished, she was indeed a “victim” who could never recover a lost love. She had to bear the stigma of being a spinster for the rest of her life. In the grand estate, the clocks of the house were stopped at the time of the wedding. This represents that Miss Havisham is living in her past and that she has not moved on. So when Estella came to her life courtesy of Magwich, she found a perfect vessel that would represent her hatred for men. Indeed, Estella embodied the hatred that Mrs.

Havisham conceived since Estella was cynical, cold, distant, and manipulative. Even though she really enjoyed the visits made by Pip to their house, she always found ways of humiliating him and making fun of his social status. She knew exactly that Pip was bereft of things that were supposed to put premium on one’s place in society: education and wealth. In fact, these has been the struggle of Pip along the story when he tries to become a gentleman by educating himself and earning money through his talent since during that period the social stratification was deeply pronounced.

There was almost no middle-class then, it is either you are poor or you are wealthy. Pip’s struggle is a complete opposite of Estella’s struggle since she possesses both wealth and education, yet ironically, she is a very unhappy person since she was raised to keep her emotions and put on a façade of defensiveness by projecting sarcasm and indifference. Estelle is in every way a deviation from romantic heroine who are thought of to be as sweet, emotional, caring, and loving. Somehow, Dicken’s reverse portrayal of a heroine gave depth and contrast to the main character – Pip.

In fact, when she was about to be married to Drummle ( who also treated her harshly ), she was still firm in her resolution of breaking up Drummle’s heart. Estella learns her lesson the hard way, she endures years of harsh treatment from her husband which actually has a good moral lesson here: that social status, wealth, nor education does not guarantee the goodness of a person. Estella is in fact symbolically isolated from her social class for two good reasons: 1) she was not really raised by her own father since Magwitch lost his status in society after being imprisoned 2) her choice to marry Drummle instead of Pip taught her that marrying someone from your own class does not exactly yield to a life of happiness.

In a way, Estella’s life is parallel to that of Miss Havisham. The only difference is that Miss Havisham suffered from without, while Estella suffered from within the confines of her miserable marriage.As Pip tries to get close to Estella, she gives him cold treatment which is heart-breaking since all Pip ever wished for was to marry Estella, his first crush. During their conversation in a café on the way to Richmond, Estella quoted that “ we are not free to follow our own devices, you and I”.

This encapsulates the prison that both of them belong to. Estella’s prison is her own thoughts, attitudes, and behavior that Miss Havisham has instilled in her. Although Estella can choose to break away from that perspective in life, her social status and the society which she belongs to would punish her. Thus, can we conclude then that Estella was really a dark heroine ? I disagree. For one, she raised by a woman with insidious intentions against men. Estella cannot just easily change her personality overnight.

Her coldness and cynical behavior may actually been Estella’s defense mechanism to her own society that she does not really enjoy being with. Her social life mostly revolved on endless parties and social gatherings that were meaningless. The reason for Estella’s rejection of the one chance of true love was that she was afraid to hurt Pip. Her marriage to Drummley was somehow a masochistic move to punish herself since Drummle represented the flaws of the upper class.In the end, Estella learned from experience as Pip noticed when he saw her and commented that “suffering had been stronger than Miss Havishams teaching and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

” It seems that Estella found her redemption by realizing that Pip without the trappings of social class, wealth, and education is a good man. For herself, Estella figured out that her conscience is the real judge of the most important things in life. As Saint Exupery said “ What is essential is invisible to the eye”. REFERENCEDickens ,Charles. Great Expectations.. Retrieved from http://dailylit.com/ books/great-expectations/1 on March 15, 2009. ISBN:158726398X.