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Hyperbole
Explanation and Analysis—A Complete Ruin!:
Miss Havisham is a particularly selfish, dramatic, and intense character, and Dickens often uses hyperbole to make her self-importance and love of melodrama apparent to his readers. In Chapter 11, Pip doesn't satisfactorily press her to explain why she hates her birthday when she brings it up. Annoyed, and poking flamboyantly at the cobwebs on a decorated table, she utters the following hyperbolic monologue:
“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay [...] was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me." [...] "When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look, “and when they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the bride’s table—which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him—so much the better if it is done on this day!”
Havisham's speech is so melodramatic and distraught that it cannot be taken seriously, as she compares her unhappiness to being nibbled by rodents. Remember, this is an old woman speaking to a young child who's been compelled to come and spend time with her in her own strange and creepy house. In this context, the "ghastly" look she gives Pip is funny, rather than scary, as she is something of a ridiculous figure.
The "completion" of the ruin she refers to is her own death, which she envisions as being exactly like her mausoleum of a life. She says, in so many words, that she hopes she dies on her birthday so her ex-lover is cursed. This is so spiteful it's also funny, but she means it seriously. Pip is alarmed by this as a child: he has no idea how to react to this clearly insane diatribe. In his role as narrator he says that he has "an alarming fancy" that he and Estella have begun to decay themselves because of the atmosphere in the house.
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