Havisham (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note
This study guide to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Havisham’ contains:
Overview
Authorial purpose
Authorial choices and textual features
Themes
Connections to other Duffy poems
Overview
The poem was first published in 1993 in the collection Mean Time
The poem is told from the perspective of a character in Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, Miss Havisham:
The character is a bride who was left at the altar by her fiancé and never recovered from the pain and humiliation
She becomes embittered and seeks revenge on men, particularly through manipulating others (especially Estella in Dickens’ novel)
Duffy brings strength and energy to Havisham’s bitterness:
The speaker is torn between grief and anger
Authorial purpose
Duffy writes about the transformative power of emotions:
Often in her poetry, love is a source of suffering
One aspect of the poem is to give voice to a female character and imbue her with powerful energy
Another aspect is to question the limited roles for a woman:
The status afforded to a bride and married woman is denied to the speaker
In the context of Thatcher’s Britain (see Contextual Understanding for more on this), the traditional, nuclear family was highly valued
Havisham has been denied this value and status
Duffy, as a queer woman, is also denied it at the time of writing the poem
The poem becomes an exploration of the cognitive dissonance between desiring and hating the thing that is denied
Authorial choices and textual features
Form
‘Havisham’ has four stanzas with no regular rhyme scheme
Enjambement (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)is used across lines and across stanzas:
This makes the speaker seem unpredictable
The thoughts are jarring, conflicting and erratic
The poem is a dramatic monologue imagining vengeance on the man who abandoned her
Structure
The title alludes to Dickens’ novel:
But the lack of ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ emphasises the lack of status accorded to unmarried women
The tone is intimate and honest
Language
One can read the poem as an allusion (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)to the original character in Dickens’ novel:
Duffy would later write the collection The World’s Wife, which builds on the concept of giving voice to female figures previously overlooked
One can also read it as an extended metaphor for the frustration of an unmarried woman denied legitimate relationships and status
Duffy uses alliteration, sibilance (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)and assonance to link concepts that are sometimes oxymoronic (opens in a new tab):
For example, ‘Beloved sweetheart bastard.’ and ‘a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon’
Colour is used to symbolise her emotions:
Green has a connotation of jealousy and of poison
Red has a connotation of passion, blood, anger and danger
White has a connotation of purity and bridal beauty
Puce is associated with melancholy and disease
Yellow suggests ageing
The speaker uses imagery (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)and metaphor (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab)to describe herself transformed by grief and the desire for revenge
Themes
Love as suffering
Duffy explores a harsh version of love in her poetry. Love is often a cause of suffering rather than comfort. Here, the speaker’s experience of love has transformed her into a bitter, vengeful figure that she barely recognises.
Theme | Quotation | Analysis and interpretation |
Love as suffering | ‘Beloved sweetheart bastard.’ | |
‘Not a day since then/I haven’t wished him dead.’ |
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‘Whole days/in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall;’ |
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‘the lost body over me,/my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear/then down till I suddenly bite awake.’ |
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‘Love’s//hate behind a white veil’ |
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‘A red balloon bursting/in my face. Bang.’ |
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‘Don’t think it’s only the heart that b-b-b-breaks.’ |
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Frustrated female identity
Duffy’s work is often concerned with the complexities of womanhood in patriarchal societies. Much of her work explores how the roles of wife and mother constrain women. If we consider the authorial and socio-political context at the time Havisham was written, Duffy was a queer woman writing in a time of conservative family values. The poem can be read as a tirade against the limited options for acceptable female identity. The speaker is frustrated that spinsterhood is reviled and she has limited options to express and fulfil her desires.
Theme | Quotation | Analysis and interpretation |
Frustrated female identity | ‘Prayed for it/so hard I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes,/ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.’ |
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‘Spinster. I stink and remember.’ |
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‘the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this//to me?’ |
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‘Puce curses that are sounds not words.’ |
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‘the lost body over me,/my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear/then down till I suddenly bite awake.’ |
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‘Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon./ |
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Connections to other Duffy poems
When studying Duffy’s poetry, it is important to make connections across her work, as many poems explore similar ideas through different speakers and situations.
Change
Postmodernist poetry is interested in fractured selves, plurality and identity that is not fixed. Duffy frequently explores how the self transforms through life experiences. Duffy often compares a complicated present with a more favourable past. The past becomes a place longed for. Frequently, the loss of youth is paired with a loss of beauty, joy or love. However, she complicates this by presenting her changed speakers as more full of knowledge and understanding of themselves; change in Duffy’s poetry is sometimes painful but also empowering. Here, grief and bitterness transform the speaker.
‘Valentine’ | ‘Medusa’ | ‘Before You Were Mine’ |
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Sources:
‘Havisham’ by Carol Ann Duffy https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/havisham/ (opens in a new tab)
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