The overlap between love and hate
Even from the first line, "Beloved sweetheart bastard," the speaker makes it clear that she feels love and hatred in equal amounts for the man who jilted her. In fact, love and hate are inextricable; without the intensity of her love, she could not feel such intense hatred. Yet somehow the hatred acts as a conduit for more love, perhaps because both hate and love, at their most intense, can turn into obsession. When she dreams that the man's body is over her, she imagines moving downward with her mouth, suggesting oral sex, and then biting awake; this moment mixes eroticism and violence.
Insanity
The imagery in this poem seems to spring from the mind of someone who is no longer entirely sane. She sees her eyes turn to stone and her hands grow ropes. Though these images work metaphorically, they feel more like the delusions of a person who no longer sees reality for what it is; her insanity has shifted her physical sense of self. She does not imagine the man who left her will come back except in her dreams, but regardless she is unable to move past the day he left her. She is caged into a purposeless life; though moving on would seem as easy as going outside, changing into a new outfit, and opening the curtains, these tasks are prohibited by her state of mind.
Loss of identity
The speaker's identity in this poem has become fused with her identification as a jilted bride, as the victim of someone else's actions. Due to this, she has no clear identity outside of her attachment to the thought of her ex-fiancé and her attachment to the artifacts from their wedding. This loss of self was also clear in Charles Dickens' book, in which she grooms her beautiful adopted daughter to act as her surrogate in a plot to enact revenge upon men in general; Pip, the protagonist, becomes her prey. At the end of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham repents for taking part in breaking Pip's heart; her dress then catches on fire, giving her burns that eventually lead her to her death. Her only wrongdoing was to fall in love and allow it to make her vulnerable; the punishment of living so miserably does not fit the crime. By victimizing Pip, who also had done nothing wrong, she perpetuates that pain. Giving and receiving pain has become a main tenet of her identity.
