Friday, 6 February 2015

Miss Havisham - Self Neglect

From my reading of great expectations I have developed my understanding of the character Miss Havisham. I have found that I imagine Miss Havisham as a being of self neglect and her motivation behind this to be her resignation to misery as well as a quest for revenge. What would this entail though?
Pip describe Miss Havisham as resembling a skeleton and waxwork, unhealthy and almost corpse like, suggesting that she really doesn't take any care in both her appearance and health. My sketch below details some of the initial ideas I have about Miss Havishams neglectful appearance.

Key Features:
- Her hair has come away from the original styling
"Her veil was but half arranged"
- She was scratch marks around her hairline from infestation of head lice
- Her curls have sunken
- Spiders and dead flowers cascade her hair and veil
- She has very shadowed eyes 
"her sunken eyes"
- She has dry chapped lips which resemble the paper like nature of her deteriorating wedding dress
- Her chest and neck bare a rash from overdue, unwashed wear
- her veil is ripped and drited 
"The drillings and trimmings on her bridal dress looking like earthy paper"
- Her face is hollow looking and sunken in

Two quotes particularly stand out to me which i would like to further investigate to develop my portrayal of Miss Havisham
"Now Waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes"
to me, Miss Havisham would have a vastly sunken in face from lack of nutrition so I will look in to the anatomy of the face and how lack of nutrition affects the body
"You are not afraid of a woman who hasn't seen the sun since you were born?"
Miss Havisham hasn't seen the light of day for at least over 8 years and to me this would definitely had some impact on her appearance. 

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