The Devastating Art of Love in Great Expectations Essay Sample

In William Shakespeare’s words, “The course of true love never did run smooth”. In our society, both past and present, is love always accompanied by hardships or even ending in tragedy? The novel, Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens, tells the story of the main character, Pip, and his upbringing as a common boy who encounters this love. Throughout his childhood, he frequently visited the Satis house which the foster mother, Miss Havisham, and her adoptive daughter, Estella, had resided in. Over time, Pip grew especially fond of Estella despite her rudeness towards him. Later on, by a mysterious benefactor, Pip later becomes an in-training gentleman. Desperate to see Estella again and live out this new way of life, secrets are uncovered, and he meets friends, as well as enemies, along the way. Throughout this well-known tale of friendship, love, and tragedy, Dickens shows that love often leads to misery, seen through characters Estella, Pip, and Miss Havisham.

Unhappiness is a common product of love, as displayed through Estella as both Miss Havisham's daughter and a married woman to Drummle. Drummle mistreated her throughout their marriage and later down the line, he was killed in an accident.  This life Estella had in this position is as follows, as narrated through Pip, “I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness” (Dickens 513). Throughout her whole childhood, she was taught out of “love” from her mother to always take advantage of men and shatter their hearts. With this influence of Miss Havisham sprouting from such a young age, Estella leads a miserable life as a consequence which eventually led her to marry Drummle, a man who was insensitive and abusive. This “love” she experienced with her foster mother and her husband was insubstantial and misguided which, afterward, became a breeding ground for despair. Consequently, Estella’s life and her own emotions were later affected negatively causing her to be unable to truly love someone else as an outcome.

As portrayed through Pip, betrayal and misery often spawn from being in love. Pip has arrived at the Satis house and encounters Miss Havisham along with Estella at the fireplace. In the midst of their conversation, Pip decides to confess his love and says, “You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then…You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with” (Dickens 386). In the earlier years of his life, Pip became attracted to Estella who, over the course of his childhood, only bullied and played him. Later after becoming this vulnerable with his feelings, Pip is only mocked by Estella once again. Despite this dramatic proclamation of admiration and years of Pip deepening his love for Estella, she still goes on to marry Drummle and abandons him. Falling in love with Estella although she never truly showed any love in response, Pip became hurt in the process. Utterly cast aside and forced to accept this one-sided passion, Pip’s quest to find love became nothing but a dead end full of misery.

Love is often misleading and in finality, ends in sorrow, as shown through Miss Havisham. Her former fiance, Compeyson, and her half-brother, Arthur, had left her heartbroken after abandoning her at the altar, as part of a plan to swindle her money. Following this unfortunate event, Havisham had done as follows, as presented through Herbert, ‘“At the hour and minute,’ said Herbert, nodding, ‘at which she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since looked upon the light of day”’ (Dickens 190). Miss Havisham loved Compeyson and in response, was deceived and taken advantage of. After this ruthless act of betrayal, she had stopped all the clocks in her home as though time had not passed. Her unwillingness to let go of this past reflects how broken her heart was and continues to be. This is then projected into the current day, in which Miss Havisham uses Estella as a vessel of revenge on “the male sex” in order to mimic the pain she felt due to Compeyson. In summary, Miss Havisham had fallen in love with Compeyson who only misled her and exploited her for financial gain. Subsequent to this, Miss Havisham was left with a broken heart, a consequence of this false love, left to be caught up in the past and down the line, die the same way.

Within the novel Great Expectations, it is portrayed the act of being or falling in love can and will end up in anguish. For starters, Estella was abused by both her foster mother and husband all out of a false feeling of love. Pip had fallen for Estella at such a young age only to be betrayed after the fact that she had married another man. Furthermore, Miss Havisham had been tricked as a naive young woman in love just to be swindled of her fortune. This theme is still prevalent in today’s society and is represented in literature across the globe. Great Expectations is just one of many novels in which this subject matter is broadcasted and continues to live on to this day.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Bantam Books, 1860-61.