“On whom should I fling myself away?” she retorted, with a smile. “Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough, and so shall my husband. As to leading me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and not marry yet, but I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other.”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 44. When Pip accuses Estella of flinging herself away upon a brute like Bentley Drummle, this is her calm response. She insists that she will marry Drummle, but not because it’s Miss Havisham’s wish. Rather it is in defiance of her adoptive mother and the life she has put her through, which Estella wants to escape from.