Spinster family caretaker for their family of origin or for a married sibling's children, "poor relations" who would work "to earn their keep" as nannies or unpaid domestics. For example, being a governess was the fate expected by rejected titular orphan in Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre" (1847); Eyre retained that status until the man she loved was widowed and available. A common theme in the fiction writings of author/poet Sandra Cisneros is marital disillusionment; for example. in the poem "Old Maids" (1994). In the Charles Dickens' classic "Great Expectations", the primary antagonist is Miss Havisham, a spinster embittered by being
Miss Havisham Pip rushes back in and saves her. However, she has suffered severe burns to the front of her torso (she is laid on her back), up to the throat. The last words she speaks in the novel are (in a delirium) to Pip, referencing both Estella and a note she, Miss Havisham, has given him with her signature: "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'" A surgeon dresses her burns, and says that they are "far from hopeless". However, despite rallying for a time, she dies a few weeks later, leaving Estella as her chief beneficiary,