One of the connexions that I was particularly interested in was Pip’s condemnation of Miss Havisham’s duplicity and his hope that Estella will leave Drummle behind to Catherine II’s animosity and outrage concerning Heathcliff’s treatment of Hareton in Wuthering Heights. One of the things that I realised these two characters have in common is that they both have come to terms with the truth and want nothing more than to free their loved ones from the manipulation of their superiors. 

In chapter 44 of Great Expectations, Pip takes his newfound knowledge about his benefactor straight to Miss Havisham and condemns her for leading him on and coercing Estella into an unhappy marriage, for the sake of petty vengeance. This is precisely the same manner Catherine II forges her alliance with Hareton in Wuthering Heights. After having suffered directly from the hands of Heathcliff and has become accustomed to his cruel, tyrannical behavior, Catherine II implores Hareton to advance his station by informing him of the displacement that Heathcliff has caused him. Whether this is out of spite for Heathcliff, genuine love for Hareton, or perhaps a combination of both- Pip’s actions are directly informed by his infatuation with Estella. Interestingly enough, both Estella and Hareton react in the same manner- and while they acknowledge that they have been wronged, they do not hold their oppressors accountable. Estella claims that her marriage to Drummle is of her own will, her own doing and Hareton, on numerous occasions, chastises Catherine II when he believes her tone regarding Heathcliff borders disrespect or treachery. 

These parallels, among many others throughout Dickens’ novels, nonetheless makes me curious about the extent to which he was familiar with the tropes of Bronte’s novel, or whether or not these narrative techniques are normative for novels written during the Victorian era.

Wuthering Heights ends with a striking and iconic depiction of ghosts when a young boy perceives the spectral Heathcliff and Catherine upon the heath, roaming the earth together in an atypically active afterlife. Ghosts are referenced, though not explicitly seen, on numerous other occasions, for example, when Heathcliff visits Catherine’s grave and feels the oppression of her spirit upon him. In all, Wuthering Heights portrays ghosts as legitimate and active forces that are capable of presenting themselves within the physical world and who perhaps even reside within it.

An active ghost is also introduced in Great Expectations when Magwitch details his life story to Pip and Herbert. While glossing his experience working for Compeyson as a forger and counterfeiter, Magwitch mentions one of Compeyson’s “colleagues,” a man named Arthur, who was involved in a scheme with Compeyson to swindle a rich woman of her fortune. Herbert and Pip realize that this woman was Miss Havisham, making Arthur the man who left Miss Havisham at the altar. This realization is supported by the “haunting” that Magwitch experiences at the hands of Miss Havisham. Magwitch reports an instance wherein Arthur, in a cold sweat, claims that the ghost of Miss Havisham has presented herself to him “all in white…[with] white flowers in her hair” (Dickens 52) and appears “awful mad.” Perhaps most disturbingly, Arthur asserts that Miss Havisham’s ghost possesses a bleeding heart and has assured Arthur that he has broken it and caused its bleeding.

Compeyson replies to Arthur’s story by flippantly calling him a fool. “[D]on’t you know she’s got a living body?” (Dickens 52) he says, demanding that his wife go comfort Arthur and investigate the validity of the ghost’s presence. While Compeyson’s wife is trying to assuage Arthur’s fear, Arthur perceives the “ghost” of Miss Havisham yet again and begs her not to touch him with the ominous shroud she carries and resists her attempts to lift him up. However, the “ghost” of the jaded woman ultimately succeeds, as Magwitch recalls seeing Arthur lift himself up and die immediately after.

Thus, an interesting and complex parallel is drawn between the two novels. This parallel poses multiple questions that could be answered in a variety of ways. On one hand, both novels seem to be assigning agency to the deceased by citing instances of their intervention. However, Wuthering Heights takes care to grant validity to the phantoms, as they are only perceived by a character, the young boy, who himself does not bear the bias that the novel’s other narrators, Lockwood and Nelly, bear. On the other hand, Great Expectations creates a specter of a living soul. As Compeyson insensitively but correctly states, Miss Havisham is still living and therefore likely could not haunt Arthur without entering the premises physically. Indeed, Miss Havisham’s haunting of Arthur could be perceived as a figment of Arthur’s imagination and as a manifestation of his guilt over his actions. Furthermore, Arthur’s encounter with Miss Havisham’s ghost could be attributed to the state of decline that Magwitch perceives him to occupy.

Unlike Wuthering Heights, the legitimacy, or at least, the agency, of ghosts is questioned through the skepticism of Compeyson and through the apparent hand Arthur had in his own destruction, as Magwitch sees Arthur lift himself before passing away. However, in questioning the legitimacy of Miss Havisham’s ghost, another question is posed by Dickens. Is it possible that Miss Havisham, though living, was indeed haunting Arthur? It is undeniable that, due to the tragedy she experienced, Miss Havisham’s life is exceedingly extraordinary. Perhaps, somehow it is Miss Havisham’s broken and therefore “dead” heart that haunts Arthur.

It is in this way that both Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations validate the existence of ghosts that arguably exist as the outcomes of love and that demonstrate love’s omnipotence. Just as Catherine and Heathcliff’s love was powerful enough to unite them in an active afterlife, Miss Havisham’s heartbreak was powerful enough to allow her to physically haunt Arthur, despite her being still alive.

When Pip goes to see Miss Havisham and Estella presumably for one last time, he tells Estella once again about his love for her. She shakes her head at his confession and tells him that he will get her out of his head in a weeks time. To this, pip replies, “Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself” (Chapter 44, Paragraph 70). Pip has become so consumed with his love for Estella that he feels something is missing when she is not around. This reminds me of Wuthering Heights when Catherine tells Nelly that she is Heathcliff. The two are so intertwined that they are one in the same.

Further in Pip’s confession he remarks that he sees Estella, “on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets” (Chapter 44, Paragraph 70). He is so in love with Estella that he sees all of the good things about her in the world around him. This also occurs in Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff is lamenting over Catherine. He is haunted by the natural world because he sees Catherine in the clouds and the trees as well. Both men are surrounded by the images of their loved ones which I think goes to show the depth (or obsession) of the love the characters have for one another.

In this section of Great Expectations, I was shocked to feel badly for Magwitch. While he is a criminal, it seems like Dickens makes readers feel pity for him. We get background information about Magwitch in Chapter 42 after Pip asks him about his history. Magwitch basically was raised poor and uneducated. When he was younger he was caught stealing food because he was starving and was sent to jail and since then he has been, “tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes” when he could and consistently in and out of jails. Magwitch shares, “‘May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on ’em,… and others on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand.” It is clear that Wagwitch’s low social status and lack of education gives him a huge disadvantage in trying to stay out of prison. He is almost punished for being poor. We see this when Compeyson gets significantly less time in prison than Magwitch because he presented himself like a gentleman in court. This backstory on Magwitch on top of the fact that Pip now doesn’t know what will come of his own financial situation is reflective of the difficulty of escaping social class in this society. This reminds me of some of the poetry that we read at the beginning of the semester like “The Chimney Sweeper” and “England in 1819.” In “England in 1819,” the writer critiques the government for their poor treatment of the lower class in England. The poem goes, “Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling.” As a result of this negligence toward this class of people, they are left to suffer and with no hope of escaping their poverty. Dickens also seems to be critiquing crime and punishment in England. He does so through his depiction of Magwitch and Pip’s unstable financial situation.

We gain insight from orphans throughout a series of texts such as; “Great Expectations”, “Wuthering Heights”, and “The Chimney Sweeper”. What each orphan has in common is the lack of love they receive from their love interests and/or even their adopted families. I choose to include “The Chimney Sweeper” because I remember in class, one of my peers mentioned that because the child was dying slowly from the harsh labor and pains they were going through, and calling out for their parent’s whose whereabouts were unknown, that the speaker’s parent might be in heaven as the poem does include a lot of religion remarks. It also makes the readers think about how a parent could ever let their child do something dangerous while they are off doing who knows what. In “Wuthering Heights”, Heathcliff is tortured by not only his adopted family but by his first and only love, Catherine. Catherine at first did not like him when he first came to live with her and her family, however, she had grown to love him up until she had stayed with the Linton’s, to where her personality changed and so did her feelings for Heathcliff. In “Great Expectations”, we see how Pip was raised by his sister Mrs. Joe and her husband, the blacksmith, Joe. Mrs. Joe was callous towards Pip and was abusive.