Havisham

Question 1

The poem I have chosen today is Havisham.

The poem is a _____ monologue from the perspective of ________ from the Charles Dickens novel _________.

Answer 1

dramatic
Miss Havisham
Great Expectations

Question 2

Intro pt 2

Miss Havisham is ____ by her lover and spends the rest of her life ______ in her wedding dress, amid the remnants of her wedding _____.

Answer 2

jilted
decaying
breakfast

Question 3

The themes I have chosen to explore in this poem are…

Answer 3

The bitter tone

The wedding imagery

And the damaging nature of hatred on the human psyche

Question 4

The poem opens with the _______ sentence “Beloved sweetheart bastard.” This line introduces the poem without _____ as it is clear that the focus of the speaker’s ___ is towards a man.

The _____ of the ____ ‘b’ sound creates the impression that the words are being ____ out, which helps to create the ____ tone that runs throughout the poem.

Answer 4

oxymoronic
ambiguity
hatred

alliteration
plosive
spat
bitter

Question 5

Additionally, she has desperately prayed for his death that her eyes have become ‘dark green pebbles’.

The _____ ‘green’ represents ___ and _____, and if the eyes are the ______, the pebble imagery suggests that her soul is ____, dead and ____.

Answer 5

adjective
envy
jealousy
windows to the soul
cold
bitter

Question 6

Say something about ropes

Answer 6

F

Question 7

The second stanza opens with the derogatory term ‘Spinster.’ The ____ isolates the sentence, which _____ Havisham’s own feelings of _____ from a society where women were _____ by their ____ status.

Overall, this summarizes the ____ tone as Havisham has been overcome by the feeling of ____ towards the man who left her.

Answer 7

caesura
symbolizes
separation
defined
marital

bitter
resentment

Question 8

Furthermore, this leads me into my _____ theme which is the wedding imagery in the poem.

Havisham chooses to remain in her _____ after being jilted at the altar for a year, which causes her to ‘stink and remember’ the pain _____ on her by his _____.

Consequently, her refusal to cleanse herself serves as a _____ and ______ reminder of her wedding.

Answer 8

second
wedding dress
inflicted
rejection
tragic
constant

Question 9

Additionally, the ‘yellowing’ of her dress ______ represents how her dress has ______ since her wedding day. However, the _____ meaning of this is that the dress is no longer _____, which suggests that Havisham is no longer ____ and has become corrupted by ____ and pain.

Answer 9

literally
decayed
Deeper 
white
pure
hatred

Question 10

Similarly, the line ‘loves hate behind a white veil’ ______ the _____ image of a wedding gown. A veil is usually associated with the ___ of a bride, but in this sense, it is something that the speaker ____ behind.

The ________ expression ‘loves hate’ conveys the link between these _____ emotions, as it implies that there is ______ type of hate that is provoked through the _____ of love.

Answer 10

contradicts
traditional
purity
hides

oxymoronic
opposing
distinctive
betrayal

Question 11

Duffy continues to ____ the usual happy ____ of weddings into the violent image, ‘I stabbed at a wedding cake.’

This highlights how the cake, like Havisham, decays as it never _____ its purpose. Miss Havisham’s marriage remains ______ which indicates her anger towards the cake as it _____.

Answer 11

subvert
associations

fulfilled
unconsummated
deteriorates

Question 12

The penultimate line ‘give me a male corpse for a slow honeymoon’ of the final stanza is filled with _____ undertones.

Once again, Duffy ____ the connotations of a honeymoon which are __ and _____, by creating a _______ and dark tone that could even be viewed as _____.

Answer 12

Sinister
ruins
joy
happiness
menacing
necrophilic

Question 13

Overall, this shows how the anger that has ______ since her wedding day has ______ every aspect of her personality.

Therefore this ____ to my final theme which is the…

Answer 13

accumulated
destroyed

links
damaging nature of hatred on the human psyche

Question 14

In the second stanza, the _____ of the lines and words are disordered which emphasizes the speaker’s _____ and her ____, ____ state of mind.

Answer 14

structure
irrationality
muddled
tormented

Question 15

Thus, the fact that she spends ‘whole days in bed cawing Nooooo’ uses _______ to compare her ______ to a crow’s caw, which ____ that her _____ has become ______.

Answer 15

onomatopoeia
harsh cries
implies
behavior
animalistic

Question 16

Moreover, her ____ has left her almost ____ as she can only ___ her anger through ‘puce curses that are sounds not words.’

Duffy uses ____ to portray her _____ mental state, as puce has connotations with ____ and frustration. This suggests how she has become _____ with madness.

Answer 16

hatred
mute
vocalize

synesthesia
deteriorating
rage
overwhelmed

Question 17

On the other hand, the next two lines ‘some nights better… mouth in its ear’ suggest that she was once able to use _____ to her advantage.

The word ‘fluent’ suggests that she could ____ use it to ____ her lover. However, these ______ memories of her love are destroyed by the ______ pronoun ‘its’ as it _____ her lover of his _____. Therefore, it makes it easier for her to continue to hate him.

Answer 17

language

skillfully
seduce
pleasant
distancing
deprives
humanity