Miss Havisham is a reclusive spinster in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. Her beloved conned, defrauded, and left her at the altar years before the story begins and so she lives the rest of her days in her wedding dress, with the clocks in her house perpetually set to the time at which she learned of her fiancee’s betrayal, and with her wedding breakfast and wedding cake sitting on her table in her decrepit mansion. Eventually she tires of a life of solitude and gets her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, to adopt her a daughter. This young girl, Estella, is trained by Miss Havisham to disdain men and hurt them whenever possible. Estella does what Miss Havisham never could. Estella eventually gets Pip (the novel’s protagonist) to fall in love with her, she leaves for school, she marries Pip’s rival, Miss Havisham repents to Pip, her wedding dress catches on fire and she dies.
NOW, in terms of Alice: Elements of this story fit nicely within the Through the Looking-Glass. Estella is Miss Havisham’s pawn in that she gets Estella to do what she never could. Alice (nee Lily) is the White Queen’s pawn in a literal sense. It brings about this idea that the madness of Miss Havisham is present within the White Queen, as the queen gets Alice to do what she cannot…
It’s not the strongest analogy but it makes sense in a way…just a little bit of nonsense.
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| Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham in the 2012 version of Great Expectations. |
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