How Dickens presents Miss Havisham, and how the character develops across the text: the jilted bride who stops time, uses Estella for revenge on men, and repents too late.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'I want diversion, and I have done with men and women', 'Do you know what I touch here?', 'You can break his heart', 'It and I have worn away together', 'The day came, but not the bridegroom', 'Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?', 'Love her, love her, love her!', 'giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter', 'I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place', 'until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done'.
Form: Satis House as a Gothic setting, and the stopped clocks, rotting wedding cake and yellowed dress as symbols of a life halted at the moment of betrayal.
OCR's question on this novel is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the novel elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the novel, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts when it is relevant to the question, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
