Great Expectations: The Real Message?

Why is it that humans all seek out the thing that nearly always ends in leaving one in a state of heartbrokenness - which is, to say, love? The answer may lie in the fact that in most people’s minds, love is a sort of savior, causing solutions to any and everyday problems - from polio to loneliness; love appears to be the cure. This generalization is, needless to say, mistaken, and Charles Dickens seems to have caught wind of this. Throughout his novel Great Expectations, he sends across the message that love is likely to ruin one’s life in lieu of making better, through the characters Estella, Pip, and Miss Havisham.

Estella Havisham - the young lady perpetually being sought after in the novel - is cold, cruel, uncompassionate, and arrogant. She cares for no one aside from herself, and one may even say she is entirely incapable of love altogether. It is no coincidence that Estella has turned out to be notably heartless, as Miss Havisham purposefully raises her to be. Her underlying reason lies in the cause of the entire situation - the notion of love, and the heartbrokenness it brings about. Miss Havisham has her heartbroken by a ruthless man who deserts her on her wedding day, and in turn she wants to use Estella to break others’ hearts. Correspondingly, Miss Havisham is only able to adopt Estella and raise her the way she does because of another feat of love. To say, Mollie strangles a woman to death merely because she is in fear of losing, for lack of a better term, her lover. Furthermore, Estella - as result of her incapability to truly love - settles on Drummle for the role of her husband, and in return is forced to live with an abusive spouse. While it’s true, Estella’s life has been wrecked by love, one should not get the image in his or her head that she is purely victim - for she, too, chooses to ruin others’ lives with the very thing that corrupted her own.

Philip Pirrip, more commonly known throughout the novel as Pip, has been very unfortunate in the aspect of life pertaining to love. Even as a child, Pip often finds himself suffering from the devastation generated by unrequited love. His beloved Estella is harsh and cruel towards him, as she openly refers to him as “coarse and common” (62-63), making known to Pip that he is unworthy of her company. From then on, he is in constant struggle to become an appropriate suitor for her. As he moves through life doing this, he frequently overlook the opportunities presented to him. To name one, Biddy - Pip compares her to his precious Estella, and of course she does not come close. Near the end of the book, Pip realizes his mistake, and decides to go back to the forge, in an attempt to get Biddy to forgive him - and perhaps even wed him. This plan is quickly pulled to a close when he comes back to the forge only to find Joe and Biddy as a couple, on the verge of being married. After this incident, Pip swears off wedlock all together; a lifestyle sure to leave him lonely, and prevent him from ever truly moving on from Estella. His entire life ruined, because of one girl, and the feeling he presumed he had for her - love.

Miss Havisham, the wealthy elderly woman living in the Satis house, has gone insane due to love - or, rather, the heartbreak caused by it. Early on in adulthood, Miss Havisham believes herself to be in love with a man by the name of Compeyson, and it is arranged that they be married. On her wedding day, as she dresses, she receives a note from her fiance, whom is leaving her. Through the note she realizes the entire time he was only in the relationship to cheat her out of her money. She is absolutely heartbroken, to a point where she wants to bring life to a halt entirely; stopping all the clocks in the house, refusing to remove her wedding dress, leaving the wedding feast on the table; uneaten, and never leaving the mansion. After this incident, Miss Havisham ceases to believe in love, swearing off of it completely, and spends the rest of her life seeking revenge on all men. As a consequence of this, she is unable to ever truly move on from the heartbreak caused by Compeyson; even near the end of her life, she is still feeling the hurt from being betrayed.

She wastes her entire life in her mansion mourning over her broken heart, instead of trying to pick up the pieces and move on with her life. Furthermore, near the end of the novel, when she finally comprehends what she has done to Pip and countless others, she begins to feel an immense guilt. It is only then that it is made clear to her she has done the exact opposite of what she had intended in the beginning - she meant to save Estella from a fate like her own, but in lieu of that she has merely caused others the same pain she had to endure. In chapter forty-nine, after Pip saves Miss Havisham from burning to death, she goes into a state of delirium which reveals how guilty she truly felt. "...In a a low solemn voice, ‘What have I done!’ And then, ‘When she first came, I meant to save her from a misery like mine’. And then, ‘Take the pencil and write under my name, “I forgive her!’” (428). In the end, all left for Miss Havisham was misery, sorrow, and guilt - all because one man came along, and she fell in love.

Love, to most, is assumed to amend life - to bring happiness, bliss, and a sense of being wanted. Little does one know what is truly in store - when it comes down to it, there is only heartache, devastation, and loneliness. As humans, all seek out the things that are unattainable, and, in the end, the things that hurt the most. Love does nothing but ruin, wreck, and destroy. Charles Dickens clearly illustrates this in Great Expectations, through the lives of his main characters. Estella can’t love, Pip’s entire life has been lived unsatisfied, and Miss Havisham never truly moves on from her heartbreak. In the novel, Dickens puts emphasis on the disadvantages of love; revealing the truth that love is nothing more than a gateway to heartbreak. There is only one question remaining - is love worth it?