The spinster Miss Havisham (have-a-shame) in Dickens’, Great Expectations, is rejected at the altar, spending her remaining days alone in a decaying mansion wearing her wedding dress. She exists only to hate with a future reserved only for vengeance.

She adopts a girl, Estella, and raises her to emotionally cripple all interested men that may approach.  Miss Havisham whispers her prime dictate into Estella’s ear as the young lady entertains her hopeless – helpless suitor, Pip, ‘Break their hearts, my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!’

Trivia: Miss Havisham states to Pip towards the end of the book: ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’ This line is attributed to Irish playwright, Oliver Goldsmith who used it in his delightful 1773 play She Stoops to Conquer.

Source: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, 1861. Graphic: Miss Havisham, AI generated.