There aren't many books from my school days that have stayed with me since those years, but the Dickens classic, Great Expectations, is one which made a permanent impression on me. Perhaps it's the image in my mind of the ghostly Miss Havisham lingering, forlorn, in her mansion, enrobed in her tattered wedding dress, lamenting her being jilted at the altar all those years ago. Her long game revenge plan of manipulating the charming girl Estelle into a guided missile of misery to be aimed at any hapless suitor as an adult is fascinating and perverse. Watching it play out over the course of the book along with its tragic results has always been appealing to me, especially being something of a fanatic for haunted house stories. This isn't a supernatural tale, by any means, but it still manages to exude that sense of dread and mystery.
The book is also, as is often the case with Dickens, a study in class inequity and bias, displaying the nature of privilege and how one's station in life is so critical in determining one's success. Though its setting is some 2 centuries ago, its themes and messages remain timeless, a trait which Dickens managed more than a few times.
I've seen a number of film adaptations of it over the years, usually to very good effect. The most recent was the 2011 UK production staring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham. I was rather taken aback by that casting as I always pictured the jilted matron as being much older, but when I considered the actual practicality of the story timing, I realized that the character wouldn't actually be that old at the time of its telling, it being only some 20 years after the failed nuptials.
After all these years since I read it in high school, it has become an iconic cautionary tale of the dangers of allowing oneself to be possessed of bitterness. It shows how thoughts of revenge can turn one's heart to stone and destroy any chances for happiness in the present or the future.
The book is also, as is often the case with Dickens, a study in class inequity and bias, displaying the nature of privilege and how one's station in life is so critical in determining one's success. Though its setting is some 2 centuries ago, its themes and messages remain timeless, a trait which Dickens managed more than a few times.
I've seen a number of film adaptations of it over the years, usually to very good effect. The most recent was the 2011 UK production staring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham. I was rather taken aback by that casting as I always pictured the jilted matron as being much older, but when I considered the actual practicality of the story timing, I realized that the character wouldn't actually be that old at the time of its telling, it being only some 20 years after the failed nuptials.
After all these years since I read it in high school, it has become an iconic cautionary tale of the dangers of allowing oneself to be possessed of bitterness. It shows how thoughts of revenge can turn one's heart to stone and destroy any chances for happiness in the present or the future.
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