Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 8. On seeing Miss Havisham for the first time, the strange figure’s grotesque appearance leaves a vivid and lasting impression on the young Pip. Two powerful metaphors of entombment and death emphasize her ghastly, almost supernatural appearance. She is compared to both a waxwork and skeleton, as she seems to exist somewhere between the living and the dead. Her haunting ghostly presence is foreshadowing of the story of the living death she subjected herself to on being jilted on her wedding day.