Reply to Elementary teacher doesn't know Dickens rote Great Expectations

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Miss Havisham, people.  Miss Havesham.  She makes Great Expectations WORTH reading: best villain ever.  She lives in a creepy old mansion alone, wearing the tattered remains of the wedding dress she first put on years and years ago when her fiance stood her up on her wedding day.  She had the clocks in her mansion stopped at that time, and has the wedding spread table still set out, moldering under cobwebs.  And she's OBSESSED with getting her revenge on men.  So obsessed that she takes a little orphan girl and raises her to be a heartbreaking temptress, keeping her isolated in the old moldy mansion so no outside influences will halt the corruption.  AND THEN, Miss Havisham invites Pip, the main character, into the creepy old mansion to meet young Estella (the little girl Miss H has warped in the hopes of carrying out her revenge).

Read it, really.  So, so good.  [/quote]

I need to read it again.  We read it in 9th grade English class in my NY state public high school, right after The Scarlet Letter (ok, so I skipped over the Custom House Sketch ... ).  It doesn't bother me that an elementary school teacher would not know this -- maybe she read Billy Budd instead of Great Expectations -- but it would be horrifying if an English teacher wasn't familiar with Great Expectations.

And Miss Havisham was completely creepy!  Still can't believe //[b]SPOILER ALERT[/b]// that she wasn't Pip's benefactor. [/quote]

Huh, I read it in 9th grade too, in NY. [b]Are you from Plainview? PP - you made Miss Havisham sound SO much more interesting than my teacher did[/b].  Our focus was on Pip, not on her. You've made me want to re-read it now to focus on her.[/quote]

No, I'm not from Plainview (pretty far away, actually), but I am an English teacher.  I'm glad you are intrigued by Miss H., though.  Pip is a fairly bland character, I think, and his type appears over and over.  Miss Havisham, though, is unique as far as villains go.

There is a very cool contemporary long "short" story called "Miss Havisham Regrets", available on Kindle.  It might not be high literature, but it is intriguing, and I have my students look at it as supplementary material.  You should read this before reading Great Expectations again!

If you like contemporary historical fiction, there is also a novel told from Miss H.'s point of view (giving her background and what really went wrong).  it is by Ronald Frame, and is also available on Kindle.  This is a "just for fun" book, not high literature, but it IS fun to delve into the creepiness of Miss H.  Some of my students (who like contemporary historical fiction anyway) enjoyed this one a lot.

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