Themes
There are several themes in "Havisham"
- Love: Miss Havisham is jilted by her fiancé Compeyson and spends the rest of her life obsessing over her horrible love story and is incapable of moving past her sadness, anger, and vengefulness. Her love is juxtaposed with hatred, to show her twisted state of mind and her mixed feelings.
- Marriage: Another theme is marriage, because the poem is based off of Miss Havisham's failure of a marriage. Miss Havisham is surrounded by aspects of a wedding--such as the decaying wedding dress she never changes out of, the wedding cake, and honeymoon. She is defined as a spinster who is incapable of ever moving past her failed marriage.
- Madness: The prominent theme throughout the poem is defined by Miss Havisham's mentality. She is in misery because she was jilted, and she is also vengeful towards Compeyson. She thinks dark thoughts such as death and murder. Miss Havisham is also continuously in her wedding dress and thinks violent thoughts. She is malicious and throughout the poem, she supports the idea that she has gone mad and is psychologically broken.
Tone
- The tone of the poem is very dark and vengeful, but there is an underlying sympathetic/empathetic tone for Miss Havisham. Duffy uses violent diction and dark figurative language to depict Miss Havisham's disturbed mind, but as the poem continues, there is a growing sympathy towards Miss Havisham. Duffy conveys Miss Havisham as a mentally distorted woman yearning for revenge and death upon Compeyson and Duffy shows her sympathy as she further develops Miss Havisham's madness and by conveying that her madness is rooted in her heartbrokenness and loneliness.
Mood
There are several moods in "Havisham"
- Fear: As a result of Duffy's depiction of Miss Havisham, there is a sense of fear is created for the reader. Miss Havisham's distorted mind and mental instablity have caused her to become a monstrous figure who is obsessed with the idea of revenge. The readers cannot help but fear Miss Havisham, who has been shaped by anger and hatred towards the man who left her.
- Sympathy/Pity: Although Miss Havisham is a character with a twisted mind that lives in a distored world of her own, a sense of pity and sympathy can be felt by the reader. The cause of her frightening personality was extreme shock and sadness after she was left at the altar. Her great obsession of revenge and hatred towards the male sex indicates how much she loved Compeyson. In "Great Expectations", she may appear as an unpleasant character, but before that, she was a woman who experienced betrayal in return for her love. The readers can understand her as a victim who has been badly hurt from her sad past.