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Tiffany Hallin
Professor L. Zlogar
English 332
9 December 2010
Nurturers, Mothers, and Lovers No More: Women in Great Expectations
Women in Great Expectations shirk their traditional feminine duties, instead adopting a
strength that could be termed masculine, which not only hinders the development of Pip as a
successful young man but also leads the women to meet undesirable ends. Miss Havisham and
Mrs. Joe are unwilling to adopt a motherly role in his life, and Estella refuses to love, so that
each contributes to Pips unhealthy sense of guilt and inability to form stable bonds with women.
However, these women suffer repercussions for their refusal to accept their gender roles, two
meeting terrible deaths and the other caught in an unhappy and abusive marriage. Standing apart
from the rest is Biddy, a positive force amid unending negativity; nonetheless, she is also a
woman who displays the unusual strength of character that affects Pips notions of gender. Each
woman contributes, whether negatively or positively, to the person Pip becomes, and what
results from so many unique feminine forces acting upon him in different ways is a confused
man with an inability to form healthy relationships with women, instead clinging to homo-social
alliances with Joe Gargery, Herbert Pocket, and Magwitch.
Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham are the two who have the most opportunity to alter the
development of the young man in their charge; both abandon traditional Victorian female roles
the idea of the angel of the housein order to maintain control over the men in their lives.
While Mrs. Joe lacks any motherly, nurturing ability, Miss Havisham plots to use Estella as a
weapon against all men, including the impressionable Pip. Masculine in their strength, both
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women refuse to yield their power over themselves and their households. What the two
accomplish is a fierce authority in complete opposition to the traditional woman described in
Patricia Inghams critical study Dickens, Women and Language; that is, they forego developing
the qualities required of girls as necessary for a successful transition to wifehood: they are
needed . . . in order to make the the happy individual who possesses them into a perfect wife
and companion (62). Neither Mrs. Joe nor Miss Havisham feels that they must in any way cater
to the men in their lives. In fact, both feel quite opposite, as evidenced by Mrs. Joes constant
complaining about the demands of motherhood and wifehood: I may truly say Ive never had
this apron of mine off, since born you were. Its bad enough to be a blacksmiths wife (and him
a Gargery) without being your mother (Dickens 9). Loveless and harsh, Mrs. Joe inspires an
unending guilt in her husband and brother/son because they disrupt the perfect order and control
she holds in her world.
Miss Havisham takes this idea of tyranny over and disgust with the male sex to an even
greater degree because her purpose in life has become seeking revenge on every man, best
captured when Pip overhears her whispering something in [Estellas] ear that sounded like
Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy! (Dickens 95).
Not only does Miss Havisham have disdain for men, she has a powerful weapon, incidentally
another woman, to use against them. In her critical response to Miss Havisham, A Re-vision of
Miss Havisham: Her Expectations and Our Responses, Linda Raphael provides an excellent
summation of Havishams masculine authority:
Thus, she may see herself as powerful, the owner of Satis House and an authority
over Estella. In each of these powerful roles, she represents the Victorian male
figure rather than the female: she owns property and she possesses a femaleand
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her own female addition to this is that she also gains power over a male, Pip.
(408)
In full command of themselves and their respective lives, Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham exert a
typically male forcefulness, which deprives their young charge, Pip, of the love and nurturing a
child needs and confuses his ideas about gender.
Damage to Pips mind and self-image first occurs at home, where his sister reigns
supreme. Mrs. Joes masculine control of her household extends to her use of corporal
punishment and mental abuse; in essence, she leaves both of her men, Pip and Joe, in constant
fear of her Ram-pages. Mrs. Joes methods of bringing up a child and keeping a husband in
check are explained very early on in Great Expectations by Pip:
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, . . . had established a great reputation with herself
and the neighbours because she had brought me up by hand. . . . knowing her to
have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her
husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought
up by hand. (7-8)
Living in a state of constant fear of the only female presence in his life, a very young Pip has
already begun to form skewed judgments about what women are and should be. Mrs. Joe is truly
an excessive female, as termed by Ingham, and most certainly possesses this capacity to turn
domestic comfort to distress . . . For Pip even the sight of her cutting longed-for bread and butter
has associations as painful as that of an apothecary preparing a plaster (81). And food is not the
only sign of domesticity that Mrs. Joe changes into a symbol of tyranny. She also happens to
enjoy an immaculately clean home, and the care that cleanliness usually signals is turned into
torture for Pip: Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her
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cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself (Dickens 23). Later, Pip
explains his sisters idea of bathing a young child by telling readers how she pounced upon me,
like an eagle on a lamb, while his face and head were roughly shoved around, under water taps,
until he was soaped, and kneaded, and toweled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until
[he] really was quite beside [him]self (Dickens 52). In physical terms alone, Mrs. Joe
successfully provides a terrifying environment for a boy to live in. Lacking in her idea of
homemaking is any inclination to nurture or love, and when, for example, the wax-ended cane
for administering beatings, the Tickler, is supplemented with never-ending mental harassment,
Mrs. Joe proves to be a deadly form of mother for Pip.
Working apart yet together, Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham effectively destroy Pips psyche
because in the absence of loving care, they provide guilt, fear, shame, and desire that will never
be fulfilled. Constantly treating Pip as the wrong-doer, Mrs. Joe often bursts into tirades such as
this: Trouble? echoed my sister; trouble? And then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the
illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed . . . all the times
she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there thereby
demeaning Pips existence and making him feel as though his birth was an awful burden that he
had dropped willingly upon her shoulders (Dickens 27-28). Then, in addition to Mrs. Joes
insistence on Pips worthlessness, the boy is whisked away to Satis House to spend his days with
an immensely rich and grim lady who is a corpse-like and watchful and brooding woman
who sets out to turn Pip into one of her monsters first victims (Dickens 51,60-61). In Miss
Havisham, Pip receives a stepmother-like figure; he feels as though the woman has taken him
under her decaying wing in order to make a gentleman of him. In reality, Miss Havisham
embodies the mythic horrors of countless cruel mothers, stepmothers, and witch-like figures . . .
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[she] has often been described by critics as one more instance of an irrational and vindictive
female figure, plotting against Pip rather than assisting him in accomplishing his goals (Raphael
401). The debris left behind from this tornado of mental abuse by both of the motherly figures in
Pips life includes not only a young boys destroyed youth and injured development, but also,
due to Miss Havishams upbringing, a ruined woman in Estella.
Estella, from the early years of her life, is conditioned by her adoptive mother to entice
men but to never return their feelings of love. But even though she mirrors Miss Havisham and
Mrs. Joe in strength, Estella provides a much different image of femininity than her elders.
Estella waits on Miss Havisham and obeys her orders, effectively adopting the angel of the
house role to Havishams masculine one as head of the household. Even as a young adult
woman, Estella, as Pip sees it, had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned
it (Dickens 303). Estella is brought up to scorn feelings of love, and what results is a long-
abused woman, raised to be perfect in every way, but to never give in to the failings of the heart.
To do so is to be weak, and so though ultimately Estella represents the angel of the house
image for which Dickens is famous, the reversal of her character remains unconvincing in
contrast to the representation of her as an abused and abusing female (Raphael 409). Even in
her performance as a suitable Victorian female, Estella cannot act away the maleness of her
strength, especially in her fierce and heartbreakingly cold conversations with Pip and Miss
Havisham towards the end of Great Expectations.
Near the end of the novel, Estella proves to be self-aware; nevertheless, she cannot feel
regret for the actions she takes after being spurned on by her adoptive mother, who says, as she
grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with
my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to
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back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place (Dickens 399).
Perhaps Miss Havishams biggest mistake was creating that cold heart, because Miss Havisham
becomes yet another one of Estellas victims. Now a ferocious grown female, Estella is
unwilling to comply happily with all of Miss Havishams moods and wishes, causing quite a
disturbing scene in Pips memory:
You stock and stone! exclaimed Miss Havisham. You cold, cold heart!
What? said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against
the chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; do you reproach me for being cold?
You?
Are you not? was the fierce retort.
You should know, said Estella. I am what you have made me. Take all the
praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.
(Dickens 304)
Cruelly indifferent to the woman who mothered her, Estella aligns herself with the other
examples of non-feminine women in the novel, perhaps even surpassing Miss Havisham in
masculine force with her harsh words. Quite unique, Estella creates a place for herself apart
from both common types of literary women as defined by Mary Jacobus in her collection of
critical essays, Reading Woman; that is women as the bearers of a traditional ideology of love,
nurturance, and domesticity; at worst, they are passive victims (101-102). Estella does not fit
into either category, because she is not fully devoted to domestic duties or willing to let things
happen to her, at least without retaliating for any wrong-doing with her apathy.
Seemingly one-of-a-kind, Estella could (arguably) be grouped with her peer, Biddy, as a
youthful and strong influence in our protagonists life. The girls appear as different as night and
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day at first glance, especially because Biddy is the epitome of an inherently good person while
Estella leaves Pip craving affection she will never return. However, both possess a strength that
is not only uncharacteristic of Victorian women, but often uncharacteristic of youth of any
gender. Biddys unfeminine power is often masked by Pips condescending opinions of her,
so that what readers see at first is exactly the kind and complacent girl our protagonist does. She
is Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, hoping to please and ready to take on the role of
nurturer that no other female in the novel desires (Dickens 73). In truth, Biddy is the true
Dickensian mother Ingham refers to: a woman with the capacity to mother or nurture; but
typically . . . not found in those who have actually given birth and who have the societal status of
mother (115). With no binding obligations to Pip and his family, Biddy has absolutely no
responsibility for caring for these people, and really no incentive once Pip makes it clear that he
does not value her as a person or as a love interest. Yet she flourishes in her role as nurturer as
Pip tells us: . . . Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the whole of her
worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household (Dickens 123). And unlike the women
who are both unable to mother and to treat others with respect, Biddy controls the strength she
does have, using it to provide very relevant lessons to her surrogate little brother or son, Pip.
Biddy is the espouser of all wise advice, and though Pip does not heed her words, a very
feminine strength accompanies them. For example, after Pip confesses his obsession with
Estella, Biddy says,
Because, if it is to spite her . . . I should think but you know best that might
be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it
is to gain her over, I should think but you know best she was not worth
gaining over. (Dickens 129)
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So, like Pips other peer, Estella, Biddy maintains a strong point of view, though her heart far
separates her from the others. Even so, Biddy, in mothering Pip, also adds to his gender
misconceptions, as Curt Hartog explains in his critical essay, The Rape of Miss Havisham. He
contends that the only positive model for mature relationships remains that of mother-child, or
worse, nurse-patient, which will continually place Pip in a dependent or feminine role, while the
women around him remain strong as men (Hartog 251). Despite Biddys unarguable goodness,
she too becomes one of the women to forever alter Pips personal development.
Women obtain positions of power in Great Expectations, but Dickens does not reward
them for their strength. Instead, he sends the message that an authoritative woman is a threat to
every person she encounters, especially when she evades the womans role of mother. Hartog
explains that At the center of Dickenss portrayal of women in Great Expectations lies a stark
and melodramatic image: women, lacking the capacity to love, become destructive to themselves
and to men. Like predators, they must be held firmly, even violently in check (248). Mrs. Joe
is one of the women who suffer greatly for her physical and mental abuse of Pip when she is
struck literally dumb by Orlick. Once a woman whose harshness prompted Pip to realize My
sisters bringing up had made me sensitive, Mrs. Joe becomes little more than a child, unable to
communicate effectively or maintain control of her body (Dickens 63). Even her demeanor
reverses completely, so that in place of the woman Pip fears, constantly on the Ram-page, is
one he is no longer afraid of:
. . . my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects
multiplied, and grasped at visionary teacups and wine-glasses instead of the
realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her speech was
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unintelligible. . . However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient.
(Dickens 122)
Here Pip tells us of the horrifying effects of his sisters attack, which all seem to be justified
because she has become a much nicer person. Mrs. Joe is both silenced and physically
punished, so that she can no longer injure Pip or Joe with her tongue or her hand; clearly,
Dickens is sending the message that we must perish all tyrants; or at least those driven to
tyranny by excessive femaleness (Ingham 86).
With Mrs. Joe relegated to a shortened and silent life, Miss Havisham contains the
biggest danger left to banish. Miss Havishams death is just as or even more horrific than the
attack on Mrs. Joe. She certainly suffers as painful an end, burned to death in the awful relic she
has shut herself up in. Pip does not only witness this event, but takes part it in on both a physical
levelby trying to put out the flamesand psychological level. Curt Hartog uses the fire scene
as the pinnacle of Pips damaged development. He contends that In its mixture of rescue,
revenge, and attempted liberation, the scene epitomizes many of the novels psychological
themes, including the destructive relationships of men and women (260). And after all, it seems
fitting that the mistress (or master, in terms of control) of Satis House, frequently referred to as a
witch, burns to death. So, in silencing and killing off these powerful women, Dickens crushes
any approval of the female capacity to influence . . . bent towards manipulativeness and
domestic tyranny (Ingham 78). Miss Havisham and Mrs. Joe join together as Pips destructive
mothers and in their appalling deaths.
Estella and Biddy, the strong young women who carry a lot of weight in Pips life, one as
his only love, the other as teacher and friend, are able to end the novel leading stable lives.
Estellas punishment for her coldness, her self-realized inability to love: there are sentiments,
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fancies . . . which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you
mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch
nothing there. I dont care for what you say at all is punished with an attachment to an abusive
husband (Dickens 362). For her crimes of shirking feminine emotion and speaking with
masculine brashness, the punishment Estella suffers seems comparatively minimal. Biddy
prevails as the lone woman survivor, never ceasing to relinquish her claims on motherhood or
feminine assertiveness. She remains wise and caring as ever, living happily ever after at the
forge with Joe.
Separately, the four main female forces in Great Expectations provide unquestionable
influence in young Pips life. Abandoning traditional notions of femininity, motherhood, and
womanhood, each adopts a unique, unusual strength. Taken together, the womens control over
Pip stilt his masculine development, giving him mixed gender signals and an unceasing want of a
nurturer, which leaves him utterly dependent upon male relationships for stability and love. In
Great Expectations, Dickens creates a world in which womanly authority results in destruction
of man and of self, leaving readers with the notion that power in a womans hands is dangerous
at best.







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Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Hartog, Curt. The Rape of Miss Havisham. Studies in the Novel 14.3 (1982): 248-265. EBSCO.
Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
Ingham, Patricia. Dickens, Women and Language. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1992. Print.
Jacobus, Mary. Is There a Woman in This Text? Reading Woman. New York: Columbia UP,
1986. 83-109. Print.
Raphael, Linda. A Re-vision of Miss Havisham: Her Expectations and Our Responses. Studies
in the Novel 21.4 (1989): 400-412. EBSCO. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.