Revenge Never Really Works

Revenge Never Really Works

“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not seek revenge?” (William Shakespeare) Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, depicts characters seeking revenge, Miss Havisham, Compeyson, and Magwitch. All of which seek revenge for different reason but they do not prevail. Their revenge plans were each caused from different reasons such as heartbreak, selfishness, and to prove their worth. Miss Havisham was to be married, but everything changed at a quarter to 9 when the groom fled with her step-brother, and money. Compeyson was a selfish, and crude man, he only wanted Magwitch's money, and property in New South Wales. Magwitch was a good kind-hearted man, who was convicted and cheated. He was convicted for a long sentence simply because he was not a gentlemen, and he did not have wealth. All he wanted to prove was the poor could be just like that the high-class society. In the end, revenge never works out for any of them.

Miss. Havisham wants revenge on all men because of her own heartbreak, but in reality one can never break a man’s heart in hope it will break them all. She wanted to break every man's heart because the man that meant the most to her crushed hers:

“...she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in a systematic way that he got great sums of money from her, and he induced her to buy her brother out of a share in a brewery at an immense price on a plea that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all,” said Herbert (Dickens 179)

She feels used, and cheated, and the way she copes, is to break the hearts of others through her apprentice, Estella:

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces—and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper—love her, love her, love her!" (Dickens 240)

She wants Pip to feel just as she does. Even though Compeyson hurt her, and broke her heart into pieces she still continues to love her. Many years later and she is still wounded by Compeyson, she wants Pip to still love her even when they have grown up and left.

Compeyson's revenge was mainly for his own advantage, he attempts revenge on Magwitch because he discovers that he has acquired money and a valuable plot of land in New South, Wales. When he hears that Magwitch is back in London, he plans to get him arrested which is another way he would use his gentlemanliness to get what he wants, “...I noticed first of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi’ his curly hair and his black clothes and his white pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of wrench I looked.” (Dickens 369) Compeyson took revenge on Magwitch to try to get higher in society. He took revenge on him to just continue to