|
Miss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel, ''Great Expectations'' (1861). She is a wealthy spinster who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place." Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties. However, it is also indicated that her long life away from the sunlight has in itself aged her, and she is said to look like a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton, with moving eyes. ==Character history== Miss Havisham's mother died when she was a baby. Growing up, she was spoiled by her father, a wealthy brewer, as a result. He remarried in secret and fathered a son, Arthur, with the family cook. As an adult, she inherited her father's fortune and fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was only out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin Matthew Pocket warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. On the wedding day, while she was dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realised he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar. Humiliated and heartbroken, from that day on, she remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had all of the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine – the exact time when she had received the letter. Miss Havisham later had her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, adopt a daughter for her. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Miss Havisham」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|