Having been taught from an early age to be cold-hearted
and cruel, Estella has never learned to care about what happens to any one--not even to
herself. As such, Estella is rather a tragic figure; she has simply been manipulated by
Miss Havisham to wreak her vengeance upon the male gender. But, by generating such a
cold, brutal nature in Estella, Miss Havisham has fostered a young woman who has little
or no feelings.
Without the human feelings of love for
others, there is little that Estella aspires to other than becoming a lady since meaning
in one's life depends upon sharing emotions. She cannot respond to the love of Pip and
only identifies with Bentley Drummle because he, too, is cruel. Always candid and
honest, Estella tells Miss Havisham that she cannot love her because Miss Havisham has
taught her not to love, but to be cruel and to have a "self-possessed
indifference":
"You should know...I am what you have made
me.....Who taught me to be hard?....Who praised me when I learned my
lesson?"
Having been "made"
by Miss Havisham, Estella meets Pip years later and is "bent and broken" by her marriage
to the brutish Drummle. She does tell Pip that she has thought of him, but says
honestly again that they "will continue friends apart."
In
the revised ending of Great Expectations, Estella indicates that
she has learned from her suffering and Pip feels the assurance "that suffering...had
given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be."
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