Havisham Quotations and Analysis Flashcards
In which way is the title effective?
- minor sentence
- no Miss or Mrs - conveys her bitterness at the fact she never got married and is still a ‘Miss’ using her maiden name.
“Beloved sweetheart bastard”
- minor sentence
- oxymoron as “beloved sweetheart” has positive connotations, which “bastard” (a swearword) suggests someone hated.
- oxymoron stresses that love and hate are related - she hates him because he loved her and broke her heart.
How does Duffy convey Havisham’s obsession in Stanza 1?
- “not a day since then I haven’t wished him dead./ Prayed for it”
- The fact she wishes for this every day suggests her life revolves around this hate and she has become mentally unstable. She turns a prayer - which has positive connotations - into something negative by wishing for his death.
What does “ropes on the back on my hands I could strangle with” suggest about Havisham’s character?
This metaphor suggests the veins and tendons etc on the backs of her hands standing out. This suggests her rage and her age.
“strangle” shows her rage and the violence within her.
“spinster”
- one word minor sentence for impact.
- negative, judgemental connotations of unmarried women.
- Havisham is angry and bitter that her fiancé did not marry her
How does Duffy convey the length of time Havisham has held her obsession in stanza 2?
“I stink and remember”
“whole days in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall”
“whole days in bed” conveys isolation and madness well as it shows she is not going out and joining society. “cawing” is an unpleasant noise some birds make and together with the onomatopoeia dehumanises her, as if she can no longer use human language to explain her feelings.
How does Duffy suggest Havisham’s fear and frailty in stanza 2?
“trembling”
How does Duffy show that Havisham no longer recognises herself?
“slewed” suggests her reflection is at a strangle angle, showing she barely recognises herself as she has changed so much both in terms of aging and personality. “her” reinforces this – initially seems as though she thinks her reflection is someone else.
Why is “who did this/ to me?” ambiguous?
She has done this to herself, but may well believe that the fault is entirely her ex fiancée’s. This is emphasised by the enjambment.
“puce curses that are sounds not words.”
Metaphor. The colour puce is dark red, which in skin suggests fever or rage.
“curses” are swearwords. Again, shows her anger and hatred.
“sounds not words” suggests she can’t articulate her feelings using human language, which dehumanises her and makes her seem almost animalistic.
How does Havisham dehumanise her fiancé?
“its” and “body” shows she doesn’t refer to him by name or even using human pronouns such as “him”, which dehumanises him.
“my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear”
fluent tongue” combined with “mouth” and “ear” is ambiguous, as it shows the power of language to seduce as well as action (the tongue is involved in both).
“bite awake”
“bite” again suggests violence and a desire to inflict pain. She turns the dream of loving intimacy into a fantasy of revenge.
What traditional wedding symbols does Duffy subvert in the final stanza? What effect does this have?
“love’s hate behind a white veil”
“I stabbed a wedding cake”
“Give me a male corpse for a long, slow, honeymoon”
Subverting these traditional wedding symbols emphasises Havisham’s violence and bitterness.
