Havisham

Havisham is a poem written in mean time 1998 by Carol Ann Duffy that looks into the life of a Character called Havisham, well known to be a character from Charles Dickens Great Expectations. The poem has been included into the AQA Anthology for GCSE students, and has been well awarded for its perceptive insight to a very memorable character in a successful and memorable book.

Basic Overview

The poem overall looks at Havisham's mental and physical state after the story of Great Expectations has finished. It comments on how Havisham is coping with her fiance's absence and traumatic wedding.

The Poem

Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then

I haven't wished him dead. Prayed for it

so hard I've dark green pebbles for eyes,

ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.

Spinster. I stink and remember. Whole days

in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall; the dress

yellowing, trembling if I open the wardrobe;

the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this

to me? Puce curses that are sounds not words.

Some nights better, the lost body over me,

my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear

then down till suddenly bite awake. Love's

hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting

in my face. Bang. I stabbed at a wedding cake.

Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon.

Don't think it's only the heart that b-b-b-breaks.