“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?” “I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.” “It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 11. Miss Havisham’s rotted and cobweb-covered wedding cake is symbolic of her own rotted heart and the decay of her hopes and dreams of love. It is also represents her unwillingness to move forward after being jilted at the altar by her fiancé Compeyson.