1) Pip has very lofty romantic ideas about Estella, but he tempers them with doses of reality. How does he feel about Estella? Why does he love her? How does she seem to feel about him? Does he really think he'll be able to gain the affections of Estella? Do you?
2) It's odd that Estella can't remember her cruel treatment of Pip. She has no heart, according to her own words...no sentimentality. What proves this idea wrong?
3) Miss Havisham implores Pip to love Estella. "I adopted her to be loved, I bred her and educated her to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!" (260-61). What do you make of this? What has Miss Havisham done....and more importantly....why?
4) Why won't Jaggers look at Estella during dinner -- even when he talks to her -- yet he sneaks looks at her while they are playing cards? What do you make of that?
5) And a short question: Sarah Pocket is described as being "green and yellow" twice in this chapter. What does this mean?
3) I think that Miss Havisham has adopted Estella so that she could break men's hearts just the way Miss Havisham got her heart broken. Miss Havisham has so much anger bottled up inside of her against the man she was going to marry. She seeks revenge and believes that the perfect way to do it is to make someone else's life miserable, so that they might feel the what she felt.
ReplyDelete3) We should cut Miss Havisham some slack. She was helplessly in love with a man that used her. She gave up her "whole heart and soul to the smiter" (Dickens, 261), only to have that affection slapped in her face. Miss Havisham is capable of a love that controls her.
ReplyDeleteMiss Havisham has grown to love Estella. It makes sense that she wouldn't want Estella to love someone that doesn't love her back-as she experienced.
I think Miss Havisham chose Pip because she finds him capable of loving Estella.
She's trained Estella to "have no softness there-no sympathy-sentiment"(258), to the point where Estella consider her felling's "nonsense"(258).
Miss Havisham has made it possible for Estella to be loved by others, but not love them back- to deny her feelings. I think she has done this, so that Estella can see who's loyal enough to stay. In this sense, Estella may one day choose someone to love someone that already loves her.
(There are several flaws in this logic; one being that Estella may-as a side effect of denying her feelings for so long-never truly acknowledge those feelings, and never choose someone to love.)