Bleak House

Tom-all-Alone’s, he meets Jenny, one of the working class characters in this novel. Her bricklayer husband has, again, abused her. Woodcourt attempts to ease her injuries and make her more “comfortable” (Dickens 559). While talking with Jenny he is called to action by a servant from Bleak House who chases a boy. The boy is very sick and weak. Once Woodcourt catches him and converses with the servant it becomes clear that this little boy is Jo. Woodcourt takes it upon himself to see that Jo gets better. Unfortunately, Jo does die under his care, but Woodcourt attempts to nurse him back to health before his death. Woodcourt meets both Jenny and Jo in Tom-all-Alone’s. Although he has an upper middle class profession and interacts with various other characters of that status and higher, he is able to spend a significant amount of time with working class people and traverse the boundaries of Tom-all-Alone’s. As Chris Vanden Bossche writes, “It is not what [he does] for these people that makes the difference, but rather the fact that [he] behave[s] in a way that grants them social recognition” (25). Woodcourt spending time with Jo and Jenny affords them the ability to be people rather than lesser beings. In Bleak House, Dickens succumbs to the “imagined community” of London, where everyone is an equal part of the whole. Anderson asserts that nation, in this instance the whole of London, “it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and…

character portrays Victorian morality of womanhood. It has been no surprise that main protagonist Esther Summerson in Bleak House portrays ideal household lady in old England as someone full of compassion, motherly love, self-effacing combining unceasing flow of spirits, extreme activity and diligence, her punctuality, uprightness and remarkable frugality that distinguishes her from her mother, Lady Deadlock who epitomize the vanity of era but all seem to in ruins as the novel progress and by…

In her article “Bleak House as an Allegory of a Middle-Class Nation”, Stuchebrukhov argues the allegorical nature of characters in Dickens’ Bleak House as a means of dichotomizing outdated aristocratic Britain and Industrialism. She argues that Dickens’ idealism toward perfect equity does not undermine the novel as unrealistic but rather further establishes it as an allegory. Stuchebrukhov analyzes several notable characters, placing each in their respective category – aristocracy or lower class…

Bleak House is written by Charles Dickens in 1852. Written over a two-year period in twenty instilments. Dickens uses Bleak House to describe his dislike of the Court of Chancery and the effects on characters from different backgrounds. In his first installment Dickens introduce two narrators to describe the Jarndyce and Jarndyce court case. Dickens views the Chancery Court as a pointless part of the legal system. Looking at point of view, dictions styles, imagery and symbolism Dickens…

In Nineteenth century England society’s ladder was full of more steps than it is now. Not only were there high class, middle class, low class, poor and rich but there were grades in each category. People’s identity mattered because it helped rank them on this ladder and so they were becoming very aware of their social standing because the people who previously held high standing due to family lineage were becoming wealthy business owners, having a hand in controlling the economy as well as the…

Bleak House is a story about Esther Summerson who lives with her aunt and is the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon. She spends the early years of her life at Ms. Barbary, her aunt’s house. After Ms. Barbary’s death she goes to live at Greenleaf at Ms. Donny’s with the help of her guardian Mr. Jarndyce. She spends six years at Greenleaf. After six years she goes to live at her guardian’s house accompanied with two other wards Miss Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. She…

The standards that women must meet has always been a high bar to reach, but it was especially hard in Victorian England. In his novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens lays out his idea of a perfect Victorian woman, setting the bar almost out of reach. His protagonist, Esther, is the epitome of woman; she is contrasted with other women that have failed to make the mark. These women, who are mere stereotypes of Victorian females, include but are not limited to Mrs. Jellyby and Miss Wisk. With each…

The excerpt chosen from Hard Times by Charles Dickens is about a speaker sharing his view of an educational system that runs solely on teaching facts to students. Since the speaker is sharing his view with the schoolmaster and a third grown person, he speaks in a formal language. However, his formality and character makes him the target of the satirical passage as shown in the second paragraph of the excerpt where the narrator provides a description of the speaker. By referring to the speaker’s…

time were either common tropes or the unique twist of that trope. Those features carry on in today’s readings of the same work, and, despite our modern bloodthirsty craze for terror, create the horror found in each of the feature frights. It takes exploration of three of those works – The Body Snatcher, The Phantom Coach, and Bleak House – to find which…

Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is considered to be “one of the most urban texts of the most urban novelists” (Griffith 248). Bleak House uses a variety of urban spaces to progress the plot and build relationships between characters who would otherwise have no reason to interact. The novel first establishes the reader in the panoramic view of London. In the early Victorian era, London was expanding and becoming more industrial. London was a mixture of slums and palaces, law courts and graveyards,…