Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham
Great Expectations character
Miss Havisham, by Harry Furniss
Created byCharles Dickens
Based onPossibly Eliza Emily Donnithorne or Margaret Catherine Dick
Portrayed byGillian Anderson
Anne Bancroft
Helena Bonham Carter
Joan Hickson
Martita Hunt
Margaret Leighton
Tuppence Middleton
Charlotte Rampling
Florence Reed
Jean Simmons
Tabu
Olivia Colman
In-universe information
GenderFemale
OccupationNone; heiress
FamilyArthur Havisham (half brother)
Significant otherCompeyson (former fiancé)
ChildrenEstella (adoptive daughter)
RelativesPocket family (cousins)
Cousin Raymond
Georgiana
Camilla
Bentley Drummle (son-in-law)
ReligionChurch of England[1]
NationalityEnglish

Miss Havisham is a character in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations. She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place". In the novel, she schemes to have the young orphan, Pip, fall in love with Estella, so that Estella can "break his heart".

Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-thirties at the start of the novel. However, it is indicated in the novel that her long seclusion without sunlight has aged her. She is one of the most gothic characters in the work of Dickens.[2]

  1. ^ In Chapter VIII, mention is made of her having "a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass."
  2. ^ "The Gothic in Great Expectations". British Library. Retrieved 16 August 2021.