In her youth, Havisham was manipulated by her fianc\u00e9, the conman Compeyson and her half-brother Arthur, in a plan to rob her of her fortune. Both the romance itself and wedding are a ploy and she is jilted at the altar, losing not only her wealth (which she had signed away prior to her nuptials) but also any hope of future romantic prospects due to the scandal that followed. <\/p>\n
Alone, rich and looking for a companion, Havisham was particularly vulnerable to a criminal wanting to take advantage. Though she lost her fortune, Dickens makes it clear that the romantic betrayal is what had the biggest impact on her psychology. <\/p>\n
The romantic duplicity shapes her relationships<\/a> with both her adopted daughter, Estella, and Pip, the novel\u2019s protagonist, making her cold and hostile toward them.<\/p>\n This article is part of Rethinking the Classics<\/a>. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books, films and artworks. This is the canon \u2013 with a twist.<\/em><\/p>\n Since being jilted, Havisham has become a recluse, \u201cstuck\u201d within the moment of her abandonment. She remains in the house with the clocks all stopped, perpetually wearing her wedding gown. Her decayed hopes of romance are reflected in the decayed objects which surround her. As Pip muses<\/a>:<\/p>\n Avoiding her eyes \u2026 I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. \u201cLook at me,\u201d said Miss Havisham. \u201cYou are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The clocks are all stopped at the time the promise of her future life ended \u2013 the moment that she received the letter from Compeyson which made the crime apparent. <\/p>\n Herbert (a relative of Miss Havisham and friend of Pip) recounts the story to Pip:<\/p>\n A certain man, who made love to Miss Havisham \u2026 Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This description mirrors many modern elements of romance fraud. Compeyson \u201cmade love\u201d to her and she became \u201csusceptible\u201d. Like contemporary romance fraudsters, Compeyson inserted himself into Havisham\u2019s life and manipulated and controlled her to believe that he loved her. <\/p>\n There was a lack of progression in fraudulent law during Dickens\u2019 time. It wasn\u2019t until the Fraud Act of 2006<\/a>, that real change came about, making fraud by misrepresentation a criminal offence in the UK. Today, romance fraud is considered a \u201cserious crime\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Long before this most personal form of fraud became illegal, Dickens saw its prevalence and drew attention to it. Others followed in his path, such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Lady Audrey\u2019s Secret<\/a> (1862), Arthur Conan Doyle in A Case of Identity<\/a> (1891) and Agatha Christie in Death on the Nile<\/a> (1937). <\/p>\n Havisham can be viewed in two ways, either as a victim or a fool. It is hard to determine how Dickens wanted her to be interpreted. Was she the stereotypical hysterical Victorian woman, as seen in other novels such as The Woman in White<\/a> by Wilkie Collins (1860) or the character of Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre<\/a> (1847)?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think so. As he was with so many other social issues, I believe that Dickens was ahead of his time and was actively trying to raise the profile of the crime of romance fraud and the impact it has on his victims. <\/p>\n As part of the Rethinking the Classics series, we\u2019re asking our experts to recommend a book or artwork that tackles similar themes to the canonical work in question, but isn\u2019t (yet) considered a classic itself. Here is Emma Linford\u2019s suggestion:<\/p>\n
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\nThe psychological impact of romance fraud<\/h2>\n
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Romance fraud in Dickensian Britain<\/h2>\n
Beyond the canon<\/h2>\n
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