I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 8. When Pip encounters Miss Havisham for the first time, he finds a decayed and ghost-like figure wearing an old bridal gown. Similes liken her withered body to her faded, yellow wedding dress and wilting flowers about her in Satis House. Like her once great mansion, described by Pip as being in a state of disrepair and decay, she is a relic from the past. Miss Havisham’s bridal dress, symbolizing her heartbreak at being jilted at the altar, foreshadows the unhappy love lives both Pip and Estella will experience. Estella enters an abusive marriage with the brutish Bentley Drummle, while Pip misses his chance of happiness with Biddy and winds up unmarried.