Havisham Madness Quotes

This phrase, which begins the poem, just might be a symptom of Miss Havisham's madness. Can someone be both a sweetheart and a bastard at the same time? She could be purposefully using an oxymoron to present contradictory ideas. (She both loves and hates her ex-fiancé.) Or maybe she's a little nuts, and the contradiction flies completely over her head.

Here Miss Havisham is certainly aware of herself. She knows she's a spinster. She even acknowledges the fact that she stinks. So maybe she's not so crazy? She seems pretty aware of herself and the situation she's in.

Lying in bed all day screaming at the wall doesn't exactly sound like good mental health behavior to us. Then again, who hasn't been temporarily destroyed by the breakup of a relationship at some point in their lives? Shmoop recommends ice cream.

At first Miss H doesn't even recognize herself in the mirror. She sees a "her" – like she's looking at another person before she recognizes herself. This might be madness, or it might just be plain old shock: she has become pretty strange looking over the years and she probably doesn't see herself that often. She asks who's at fault. Is it her? Her former fiancé? This seems like a pretty sane question to ask.

This is perhaps the height of Miss Havisham's craziness. We don't want to know what she's going to do with this male corpse. Not at all. Nor do we want to.

Miss Havisham's body is broken, her life is broken, and maybe even her mind. So is she crazy? We're still not sure. Is she stuttering here? Blubbering? Shivering? Trying to decide just what is going on in Miss Havisham's mind is one of the things that make this poem so unexpectedly fun.