Unrequited Love In Great Expectations

In the novel Great Expectations, a cruel elderly woman, Miss Havisham, had been left at the altar by a man named Compeyson. Therefore, she uses an innocent and undeserving orphan girl, Estella, to take vengeance on all men as a whole. Estella is raised in a way that causes her to be incapable of expressing any form of love and is consequently cold towards the men who seek her. She treats the main character, a boy named Pip, in this way, through an unrequited love. Similarly, in the song “I Don’t Love You” by My Chemical Romance, the mentioned love interest does not share the writer’s affection. Many people, including the authors of the song, can relate to the lack of mutuality in Pip and Estella’s relationship. Due to this, the song best relates to Estella’s tragic efforts to defy love. To begin with, the song starts off with, “Well, when you go, don’t ever think I'll make you try to stay, and maybe when you get back, I’ll be off to find another way” (azlyrics.com). This is how readers might interpret the way Pip felt when Estella ran off and married Drummle. Pip was surely heartbroken, but he knew the engagement of Estella and Drummle was ineradicable. The novel reads, “Is it not true, that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and pursuing you? […] “I am going to be married to him” (Dickens 363). Part of Pip’s motive for
This line certainly resonates with the reoccurring theme of Estella’s absence of loving nature. Luckily for Pip, Estella was not shy in admitting she could not reciprocate his feelings, due to her being under the tutelage of Miss Havisham’s need to wreak havoc on all men for the entirety of her childhood. “When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more” (Dickens 362). She, as one might say, “had the guts.” The song continues, “When you go, would you have the guts to say, I don't love you”