Havisham

"Havisham" is a poem written in 1998 by Carol Ann Duffy. It responds to Charles Dickens' character Miss Havisham from his novel Great Expectations, looking at Havisham's mental and physical state many decades after the conclusion of Great Expectations, when the bride is in her old age. It expresses Havisham's anger at her fiancé and the bitter hatrs ed of her traumatic wedding and the jilted state she has been left in. Duffy's use of language is very powerful and passionate. Throughout the poem oxymorons and juxtaposition such as "Beloved sweetheart bastard" and "Love's hate" portrays the ambivalence and restless uncertainty of the character, while a sexual fantasy reveals both the unrequited love and the passion that remains within Havisham following the wedding, a devastation from which her heart has never recovered.