David Baier
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Miss Havisham, a wealthy character in the book, lives a life of disparity and chaos rather than a
life of happiness and virtue. The story introduces Miss Havisham as a gloomy person living in desolation
and compares her to “a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress.”(49) Despite being clearly “rich,” Miss
Havisham corresponds with a “skeleton,” a symbol of death and decay. Furthermore, she wears “rich
materials and jewels;” (48) her wealth apparent but her wedding dress, once white, now “was faded and
yellow.” (49) A general wedding dress represents happiness and prosperity yet Miss Havisham changes
the nature of this belief to decay and sadness. She even acknowledges the gloom in her attire, “so new
to him [Pip], so old to me [Miss Havisham]; so strange to him, so familiar to me, so melancholy to both
of us,” (50) and repeats the misery or “melancholy” in the wealthy society. Miss Havisham not only
recognizes the despair in her dress, but also is “familiar” with it; despite being rich, she is attached to
misery and decay by wearing the “yellow” wedding dress thus contradicting the social idea that wealth
brings happiness.