Great Expectations of a Blank Space
A look into two anti-heros as written by Charles Dickens and Taylor Swift
Have you ever known someone charismatic, beautiful and intelligent but unable to care about you? In fiction we can explore humans without actually naming names; the characters don’t exist in reality but authors use their experiences and imagination to bring to life personalities that embody the truth.
In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the story centers around a poor orphan named Pip. Resentfully raised by his sister, he is asked by chance as a young boy to play on the grounds of Miss Havisham’s estate - just for her amusement. Miss Havisham is also raising a young orphan, a haughty and beautiful girl named Estella. A central plot to the story is how Miss Havisham plans to exact her revenge on her ex-lover. Miss Havisham was jilted on her wedding day and allows all her surroundings in her giant house to remain exactly they way they were when she found out the love of her life wasn’t going to marry her. Her anger, pain and resentment are poured from her heart into Estella’s head from a young age, training Estella to think that no man is worth loving, and that to prevent pain love is not allowed into the heart.
In Blank Space by Taylor Swift, a different narrative plays out to a similar tune. A young woman, beautiful and cold, is seemingly unaffected by any kind of mutual care or compassion for a series of lovers. There is a deliberate and planned sexiness to lure in a new prey, a sense of power is established, but when things don’t go as planned the “insanity” sets in.
A line both Estella and Blank Space woman can share on the philosophy of love is:
“Boys only want love if it’s torture. Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya”
Pip can’t seem to help himself. He is instantly and forever attracted to and desires Estella, because she is beautiful and haughty. He tells Biddy—a solid, hard-working and overall “good” young woman that would otherwise have been enough for Pip—that “…I admire her (Estella) dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.”
But to Estella’s credit, she warns Pip:
“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart—if that has anything to do with my memory.”
I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it.
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said Estella, “and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.”
In Blank Space, the thing missing from the song—because it’s not a novel, but a vignette—is the background story of the woman who is selfish, self-absorbed and jealous without really caring. There’s a curiosity the listener has on how this monster came to be; we are viewing the end result without the beginning, which makes the Blank Space woman one-sided and a creature for whom to feel no sympathy. Was this a being made by nature or nurture?
Back in high school, my English teacher told us that writing a villain is good, but writing a villian that makes us feel sympathy for them is even better. Miss Havisham is a villain, for taking her hurt and passing on that hurt through Estella onto Pip. With Blank Space girl, I don’t feel any sympathy for her, except perhaps that in the video she’s wandering around the beautiful grounds alone with her victim. There is a sense that there are no friendships and no family to share emotions with, which has led to the temptress with unclear motives and irrational emotions.
Side notes:
Last month my friend sent me a link to the holiday Dickens Fair, which is a “one-of-a-kind immersive adventure into Victorian London.. an elaborate holiday party with hundreds of costumed players performing and interacting with patrons” held in Daly City in November and December.
By coincidence, I had just watched the 1936 version of Great Expectations, which was one movie that my Dad was very fond of and had my sister and I watch when we were kids. (The 1998 remake with Gweneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke is great too!)