Estella (Part VI)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is the final section, part six...

Part VI. How To Change (See Your Lies)

So much time has passed, and so much has happened to me. Change is hard; change is never absolute. I decided to change, but I consistently relapsed into was before. I made mistakes.

Bentley Drummle was the biggest of those mistakes. After my confrontation with my mother, I promised myself that I would be different. Then I went back to Drummle, back to my misconceived perception of love. I told myself pretty lies and I pretended that I was happy.

Everybody gets angry sometimes. He never means it when he says awful things. I couldn’t think of an excuse for the other things he did, so I ignored them.

I also lied to myself when he died. You aren’t relieved, I comforted myself. You’re grieving.

Lie.

After him, I was alone for a long time. I was positive at first that that was a second mistake. I was sure that I could never be alone, that I needed to find a husband, that I wouldn’t blossom fully unless I could fall in love.

Lie.

Maybe my blossoming would come when I found love, but my prolonged isolation was what made me capable of falling in love. In all that time by myself, I was forced to keep myself company. In doing that, I became better acquainted with myself. I was able to understand exactly how I needed to change. And I made those changes. 

Today, I live in a small, elegant house, simplistic and poised - no longer condescending or spiteful. There is a small closet in the back of my house that contains an ugly old jewelry box, overflowing with gaudy jewels. Sometimes, I look at those jewels and remember when I used to wear them. A voice, one bred of the mother that wanted me more than I wanted her, sometimes says to me, You were better then. More beautiful. More strong.

But I recognize the all-too-familiar lie before it can deceive me, and I never put them back on. I know better now.

Today, I am happy that I made mistakes, because ‘mistake’ is just another way to say ‘a lesson learned’.

Today, a single flower in blooms in a vase on my windowsill. I put it there, with help from a boy I have known for forever.

He forgave me. And I forgave myself. And everything was alright.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part V)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part five...

Part V. Jewelry & Hope; A Message For You

You did not teach me right.

You said things, and I believed them. You taught me about love and marriage and men, and all of it was a lie.

You ruined me.

You gave me jewelry, and at first I took it and wore it and I thought it was beautiful. I thought I wanted the jewelry, I thought it was better than the flowers that the other girls got.

None of those girls wear jewelry like I do. They are happy, they smile inside and out. The flowers they grow, planted from the seeds of the flowers their husbands gave to them, thrive in vases on their windowsills. But my flower is stunted. At first I thought it was just different, and in a good way. Better. More mature.

Now I see that my flower cannot blossom because it grew from a plant that is sickly and diseased, a plant that passed its sickness to the young flower growing from it.

You forced me to wear the jewelry, but it is too much, too heavy. It weighs me down. My head sinks under the weight, I cannot raise my eyes and look at what else I could be. My hands are laden, dripping with jewels, and I cannot lift them.

I do not understand how to take the jewelry off. I have changed my mind - I want flowers now. I realize that I could have had them all along, but you stopped me. ‘Don’t play in the dirt with the flowers,’ you said. ‘Ladies don’t need flowers.’

The fire burns behind you as I tell you this. The flames leap and flail as if they are the two of us, one attacking the other, pouring out resentment as the other cowers and tries to make it all fine.

You cry. You apologize to me, your tears sliding down your face as if they know the way very well. And they do - they have traveled that path many times before. Your tears do not sway my heart. I have cried their equals, cried them because of what you have done to me.

Maybe you wanted to help me. Maybe you wanted to teach me to avoid that which destroyed you. But all you did was wreck me just as completely as you are wrecked.

A boy stands with us. We have known him forever, and he is the reason why I share with you my resentment. He scares me, and I am scared at my being scared of him. Scared enough to realize exactly what is wrong with me, and exactly why.

If he did not already hate me for the way you prodded me into treating him, he surely hates me now. And that makes me hate myself, and it makes me hate you. Because in a lot of ways, it is your fault that he must hate me, and I don’t want him to hate me. I think that he is the sort of person who would make me smile not only on the outside, but on the inside as well, if I were ever to dance with him.

He would give me flowers. He tried, a long time ago, and I ignored him. Now I have to hope that he’ll ask again someday; I hope that he will help me take off all this jewelry, that we can plant flowers together.

You do not know what hope is. You left hope, neglected whatever shred of it you had until it withered away, and you cannot help me. I don’t even want you to try. You did not teach me right, and now all I have left is hope.

Goodbye.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part IV)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part three...

Part IV. Choosing

People return to you at the strangest and most inopportune times. People you thought you had forgotten. People you forgot to remember. They hear about the new people in your life and they question you. They ask you the questions that you don’t think to ask yourself.
People like that - like him - make you reevaluate yourself. People who you never realized meant that much to you, and suddenly, they become all you think about and it scares you. He scares me.
It’s not that I think he isn’t safe; it’s that he shows me a different way of living, and it takes me away from what I know. He makes me re-think everything.

At first, he showed me a humble lifestyle, no grandeur, no extravagance. And I scorned it. I laughed at him and his coarse hands and his thick-soled boots.

Now, he shows me that maybe love isn’t all about money and status. Maybe marriage isn’t about taking advantage of other people's assets. Maybe being a lady isn’t the most important thing to be. Maybe there is more to loving somebody than I know; maybe I don’t know anything about loving somebody because I’ve never experienced it. Maybe I’ve only imagined love where there isn’t any.

And then he leaves me and I think about how I think when I’m around him and it’s so different from how I think when I’m not around him and I’m feeling (is that what this is) and if it is feeling and it happens when I’m around him then am I feeling for him and this is not what I know I don’t know what to do I have to act like I know but I am just stumbling through each day blind - I’m so confused.

And then he’s back, and it happens again. Then I start to think again. I become more and more muddled, these new notions creep around the edges of everything I thought I knew. I am a flower, and my petals are just beginning to open, sunlight beginning to seep in and make things clear.

I think I know what I want. I think I know what’s really true. I have to change, but I don’t know how. I’m angry at myself for being the way I am, and I wonder why everything is so hard.

Now I remember. I remember who taught me to be a lady. I have made my choice; I need to go home.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part III)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part three...


Estella - Part III. The Things Ladies Do

     It is a curious thing, when one stands in the middle of a crowd and feels completely alone.
     I watched the dancing couples twirl about, the sliding of their feet against the floor complementing the twinkling ballroom music swirling through the room. They looked so happy in their togetherness, so unafraid.
     I stood near the wall, wishing desperately that I could slouch against it and relax, but knowing that I could not. A lady maintains perfect posture at all times, even if she is uncomfortable.
     Earlier, I danced with Bentley Drummle. We waltzed and glided and followed all the motions. Perhaps I looked happy on the outside; perhaps all the others are only smiling for everybody else. Maybe underneath they wonder if maybe they should be smiling on the inside too. Maybe I'm not the exception to the rule.
     But never mind that. A lady does not worry herself with trivial matters. She must focus on marriage; she must marry well, or she will have no future.
     I have seen what happens to unmarried ladies.
     I hold my dance card, rows of names in my neat and practiced handwriting, stacked one on top of the other. I danced with many men tonight, but I cannot remember who each of them are. I don't remember their personalities or their faces, or what we discussed as we rotated and revolved. All I retain is their names, thanks to the cardstock reminder creasing in my hand. One thing I do remember is anxiety. Tension. 'Will this one be the one to break me beyond repair?'
     No. I won’t think like that. Ladies do not dwell on the unpleasantries; I will not dwell on the misery and loneliness that I do not (I don’t I don’t I don’t) feel. I will not dwell on the ways in which love can ruin you.
     I remember time in a timeless room, splashes of jewels, a future promised and prepared for. My mother taught me well. She isn’t my mother by birth (that mother is unknown to me), but she raised me. She taught me all I know. She explained to me the ways in which the world works; she has allowed me to stray from the pitfall-laden path of searching for love, shown me how to be successful in marriage. How to gain, or, rather, how to cut my losses. That is how ladies find love; they find those who will bring them money and status.
     The other young women ask why I dance with Drummle. They say that he’s self-centered and easily angered, indifferent and unromantic. Their boys give them flowers, but I don’t know why they like that so much - they’re just plants. Ladies like me don’t want flowers from their courtiers; they want jewelry.
     I decided that I did enjoy dancing with Mr. Drummle. Really and truly. He is affluent. His family is respectable. I think this may be love.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part II)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part two...


Estella - Part II. The First Boy

There is a boy.
He is new, and different, and so very far from me that I am unsure of what I am to do with him; why has Mother brought him here?
He is a he. A him; a boy.
Mother warned me about boys. Boys and their promises of love. Boys and their murmured confessions, the impossible offers they procure out of thin air, and she says that I’ll believe them if I am unprepared.
So Mother has prepared me. I think perhaps this Boy is practice; a way for me to experience the lies with Mother standing by to aid me, to remind me of the danger. 
We play cards, but only the simple games. The Boy doesn’t know the strategic games that Mother and I play. He hasn’t been taught our ways.
Mother lets me wear her jewelry, and she whispers things in The Boy’s ear. The Boy is quite infatuated with me. I know because Mother told me so; also because he follows me the way a dog will follow a hand with a treat. Watching, waiting. Eager and hopeful.

---

The Boy has been with us for a very long time. I led him on and pushed him away (always according to Mother’s prompting), and now I am through with him. Mother is very proud of me. She has told me so. She says I am ready to be a lady; ready to go out, ready to make more boys fall in love. Ready to find the one who will bring me the most, and ready to marry him. 

I am to go to London soon. I am to stay with a friend (Mother’s word for the vultures who lurk about her, snapping up any scrap of possible inheritance and shooting jealous looks at me (for my inheritance is already insured, as I am Mother’s daughter)) of Mother’s, in an estate just outside the city. I am to attend dances and be outfitted for new dresses; I am to show Mother that she has taught me right.

Mother has given me her jewels to take with me to London.

I grew up playing with her jewels, trying them on and pretending to be who I am about to become. Now I wear them, just as Mother wore them, and I take the carriage to London, ready to be married.  

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part I)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part one...

Estella - Part I. Forgetting

Today, I planted a flower. I’m not sure what type of flower it is, and I won't know for sure until it’s fully grown. But I have high hopes for it.

I was sitting outside with it in the garden. I patted the crumpled furrows of dirt arranged around each of my fingers in the places where I rearranged the earth. Waiting underneath them is the seed that I placed, slowly absorbing trickles of water sent from above and ever aspiring to reach the world above.

Dirt formed gritty crescents under my nails, but I didn't care. My flower was more important. My hands, delicate and uncalloused and bare of the wrinkles that come with growing up were laced with mud, and flecked with tiny pebbles.

Then Mother saw me from her bedroom window. And she sent the servant to come and get me. And she made the housekeeper bring me a new dress and new shoes and new stockings, ones that weren't spoiled with soil. Those she told the laundress to wash clean. After that, I went upstairs to sit in Mother’s room, and I listened to her as she explained to me what it means to be a lady.

I must sit up straight, keep my hair tidy, cross my legs when I sit (at the ankles, never the knees). I must wear clothes appropriate to my station in life (which is better than those who were born common, those who have rough hands and thick-soled shoes and coarse shirts because they can’t afford anything better). I must train to be beautiful, wear the scents and paints and jewels that make me irresistible to boys. But I must resist the efforts of those boys to woo me, to distract me from the real goal of marriage; money. I must be the temptress, not the tempted. ‘Love is a lie,’ Mother says. ‘I know. I believed in love and it destroyed me; my daughter, you must do what I did not. You must escape my dreadful fate.’

‘How, Mother? How will I ever remember all of the things I must be?’

‘By forgetting, Estella dearest. By taking all you knew before and replacing it with proper and elegant and poise.’

I must pay close attention to Mother. She is already a lady and so she can be my teacher. My example. She is what I have to remember, and my flower is what I have already begun to forget.

- CinnamonGinger