So I was reading the Jan 1 NYT piece, "Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)," when this caught my eye:
No jilted bride could feel as embarrassed and humiliated as a woman in her 60's discarded by her husband. I was confused and scared, and the pain of being tossed aside by the love of my life made bitterness unavoidable. In those first few bewildering months, as I staggered and wailed though my life, I made Miss Haversham look like a good sport.
I had always thought literature's most famous jilted bride was Miss Havisham. (My number-two pick? Granny Weatherall.) A quick search through Great Expectations backs me up, but a Google on "Misss Haversham" also produces many results.
So is the Gray Lady wrong, or am I?
On a different note: this essay is perhaps the exception to the "Housewifery! It's where all today's overachievers are!" trend this paper's been promoting for the last few years. It's a first-person look at the devastating economic and social consequences of divorce following a long-term marriage. Would that all the young Princetonians planning on letting their husbands support them could get a framed copy of this piece as a bridal shower gift.
SparkNotes has it listed as Havisham. Perhaps Hekker has fallen prey to the same errors that plague Alessandra Stanley.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/greatex/characters.html
http://www.gawker.com/news/new-york-times/the-alessandra-watch-how-wrong-is-she-145318.php
Posted by: drunken monkey | 2006.01.01 at 12:04
This PhD in 19th-century British literature says Havisham. She also says the Gray Lady's copyediting for online articles has been getting increasingly shaky of late.
Posted by: Kate | 2006.01.01 at 15:30
Well, I dug out my dad's old Caxton edition of Great Expectations (so old it doesn't even have a date in the general imprint field) and it gives her name as "Miss Havisham". Just a data point.
Posted by: ardeth | 2006.01.01 at 17:15
My dusty old junior high copy lists Havisham too. I think people get confused because Haversham/Habersham is a somewhat common last name, at least around here. Still, seriously, no copyeditors caught one of the most famous literary characters of all time? It'd be like saying Jayne Ayre or something like that. Sad.
Posted by: Maggie | 2006.01.02 at 20:31
No weigh-in on Havisham, but I found the writing in the article itself to be quite self-indulgent. Still, always a good perspective for a Generation X wife to remember.
Posted by: Tracy | 2006.01.03 at 09:57
Wait, if we're including pre- and post-altar jiltings, Miss Emily Grierson should be in the running, too. Just because she made sure he didn't leave for good doesn't mean she wasn't jilted.
Although the fact-checking of that piece leaves a lot to be desired, so does the stylistic copy-editing: "We had been married by a bishop with a blessing from the pope in a country church filled with honeysuckle and hope. Five children and six grandchildren later we were divorced by a third-rate judge in a suburban courthouse reeking of dust and despair." The rhyming and the alliteration are excessive, even taking the piece's placement in Style under consideration.
Posted by: ginger | 2006.01.05 at 11:48
Chapman & Hall's 3 vol 1st ed of Great Expectations shows "Havisham"
Posted by: Anthony | 2006.09.03 at 00:18