Who Miss Havisham is
Miss Havisham lives in Satis House, a large, decaying home where a rotting bridal feast remains on the table. Her wedding dress has yellowed with age, and dust and spiders cover the remains of the feast. The stopped clocks and shuttered rooms make her home a picture of a mind fixed in one hour.
What Miss Havisham wants
Miss Havisham seems to want Pip to feel the pain of Estella's beauty and pride. She asks him what he thinks of Estella and watches his hurt with a strange hunger. Her treatment of both young people shows how someone can shape others through bitterness.
Miss Havisham and the others in the story
Miss Havisham raises Estella to wound others, and Pip becomes a victim of that training. Estella's scorn makes him ashamed of his rough hands, thick boots and life at the forge.
Miss Havisham later arranges Pip's apprenticeship to Joe, but he hopes she has a grander future planned for him. When an unnamed benefactor offers him wealth, Pip assumes she means to make him a gentleman for Estella. The lawyer's announcement gives him no grounds for that belief, yet he treats his hope as certainty.
Questions
Who is Miss Havisham?
Miss Havisham is a rich, embittered woman who invites Pip into her secluded life at Satis House.
Why does Miss Havisham invite Pip to visit?
She asks for a boy to come and play, then has Pip play cards with Estella. As Estella mocks him, Miss Havisham appears to take pleasure in his distress.