Since its publication in 1860, Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations has earned a reputation as one of the most powerful and moving works of the nineteenth century . Great Expectations follows the story of a poor boy named Pip in his more fortunate years as an adult where he transforms into a gentleman. One constant in Pip's ever-changing life is his love for the beautiful and cold Estella. Pip meets Estella when he is just a boy and his affection for her only grows as the years pass. However, Estella will never return his love because she was adopted and raised by Miss Havisham, whose only purpose in life is to ravage men. Using Pip and Estella as pawns in her sick game of revenge, Miss Havisham transforms herself into a twisted puppeteer, sitting in the wings pulling the strings only to watch the tragedy ensue. Although Miss Havisham ultimately gets what she wants, her heart, Pip's, and Estella's are all in chaos. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The unrequited love shown between Pip and Estella throughout the novel illustrates the negative effects of ruthless revenge resulting from a love gone wrong. Throughout Great Expectations, both Miss Havisham and the people in her life suffer greatly due to her quest for revenge. Not always heartless, Miss Havisham vowed to take revenge on men the day she was left at the altar. Miss Havisham, “loved him passionately… [but] he exercised his affection in that systematic way” (Dickens 166), all her husband was, Compeyson wanted from Miss Havisham was her money. Yet now Miss Havisham uses Estella to use men in a systematic way, literally lowering herself to the lowest level of Compeyson's heartbreaking games. Haunted by this day, Miss Havisham never takes off her decrepit wedding dress, her only shoe, and all her clocks are stopped forever at twenty to nine, the hour when her happy life ended. Here, Miss Havisham is determined to stop time by refusing to change anything from the day unrequited love came to threaten her. To exact her revenge on humanity, Miss Havisham prepares Estella to play men from a young age who say, "'break their hearts, pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!'" (87). Estella being only a little girl at this time, Miss Havisham was able to easily mold her into the shape she wanted her to be. As well as influencing Estella, Miss Havisham also curses Pip into falling in love with Estella forever, singing: Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she hurts you, love her. If she tears your heart into pieces, and as she grows older and stronger, it will tear deeper, love her, love her, love her! (219) However, as time passes and she realizes Estella's coldness towards everyone (including herself), and Pip's true feelings, Miss Havisham feels terrible about her hellish revenge. While speaking to Pip, Miss Havisham reveals: 'until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a mirror that showed me what I once felt myself, I didn't know what I had done.' " (365). "What have I done!" (364) becomes a mantra for Miss Havisham. The shame and guilt over her actions in encouraging unrequited love lead her to such extreme devastation that she throws herself into the flames. As Miss Havisham's decadent wedding dress caught fire, so did all the hatred, vengeance, and pain she had held onto for all those years. Paradoxically, Miss's greatest sinHavisham was against itself. Ultimately, unrequited love and its ill effects led to Miss Havisham's ultimate death. Estella, Miss Havisham's pretty pawn, ends up leading perhaps the most devastating life of any character affected by unrequited love. As a girl, Estella was brainwashed. Miss Havisham has no autonomy to do what would truly make her happy in life. Her only purpose on earth was "to unleash Miss Havisham's vengeance upon men." (276). Since childhood, Estella had tried to warn Pip as best she could to stay away from her because she knew she had no heart. Contemplating: “'oh! I have a heart suited to being stabbed or shot, I have no doubt... but you know what I mean. I have no sweetness in this, no sympathy, feeling, nonsense.'” (217). However, despite his warnings of heartlessness, lovesick Pip could not stay away. One cannot help but feel pain, when Estella is downright cold to her adoptive mother, stating, “'I am what you made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me'” (277). Recognizing the fact that she is merely a puppet for Miss Havisham, readers cannot help but feel sympathy for her aloof character. Probably the most shocking moment in the novel is when Pip professes his love for Estella and she says, “'You don't address anything in my chest, you don't touch anything there. I don't care what you say at all.'” (331). In a way, Estella's character does not fully develop until the end of the novel. Until the end of the novel, Estella is a one-sided character whose sole purpose is to make men unhappy through her unrequited love. However, after marrying Bentley Drummle, presumably to make Pip unhappy, Estella ends up being the despondent one. When Pip meets Estella at the end of the novel, he says: The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but her indescribable majesty, and her indescribable charm, remained. Those attractions in it, I had already seen; what I had never seen before was the sad, dimmed light of once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of that once numb hand. (441) Essentially, Estella marries Bentley Drummle without loving him, and suffers for it. She is no longer the fantastic figure, wonderfully and terribly cold, now she is just a worn-out woman: all her greatness has disappeared due to the negative effects of unrequited love. Pip's unrequited love for Estella is undoubtedly the main driving factor of the plot and the only thing that inspires Pip to seek the status of a gentleman, even if it means leaving his old life and family behind. Similar to Estella, Miss Havisham groomed Pip as a boy to fall madly in love with Estella. The "curse" that Miss Havisham placed on Pip haunts him to the point that Estella is almost all he can think about. After being haunted all his life by his love for Estella and Miss Havisham, Pip finally breaks down and says, 'I am as miserable as you could ever have wanted me to be.'” (328). Probably the turning point in this novel regarding the theme of unrequited love is when Pip brings his heart completely to Estella in this touching passage: Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have read, since I first came here, the rough, common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since: on the river, on the sails of ships, in the swamps, between.