Havisham Havisham "Havisham" is a poem written in 1993 by Carol Ann Duffy. It responds to Charles Dickens' character "Miss Havisham" from his novel "Great Expectations", looking at Havisham's mental and physical state many decades after being left standing at the altar, when the bride-to-be is in her old age. It expresses Havisham's anger at her fiancé and her bitter rage over wedding-day trauma and jilted abandonment. Duffy's use of language is very powerful and passionate. Throughout the poem oxymorons and juxtaposition such as ""Beloved sweetheart bastard"" and ""Love's hate"" portrays the ambivalence and restless uncertainty of the character, while a
Dickens in America us that Dickens got a few facts wrong. Most of the factory girls did not have a piano or use the public libraries. Miriam attends a Dickens barbeque, led by Bob Googins, Adjunct Professor at the University of Connecticut. Miriam entertains the picnickers with a bit of Sairey Gamp. Bob teaches a course titled, “Dickens and the Law.” He explains how he tries to teach that Dickens used the novel as an instrument of social change. Bob also informs Miriam about the “Rule of 50,” which explains what happens in the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. Miriam visits the Supreme