Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

Upper Secondary School Teacher Training

in English Language and Literature

Mgr. Helena Ondřejova

The Representation of Mid-Victorian

Society in Charles Dickens's
Bleak House
Masters Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D.

2020

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 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Author's signature

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 Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor, Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.,

for his invaluable advice, kind encouragement and understanding.
Special thanks goes also to Tom Hanzálek who is unquestionably
the spirit and soul of the Department of English and American Studies.

Největší poděkování ale patří mým rodičům. A to za úplně všechno.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 5
2. Victorian Society 9

2.1 Timeline 9

2.2 T h e Rich a n d the Poor 12

3. Mid-Victorian Novel 19

3.1 T h e m e and Topicality 19

3.2 Storytelling 24

3.3 T h e Publisher and the Reader 26

4. T h e Gloom of the Bleak House 32

4.1 T h e Law 34

4.2 T h e Importance of Being Esther 37

4.2.1 Poor Parenting 38

4.2.2 T h e Essence of Home 45

4.3 Poverty, Pollution a n d Overpopulation 51

5. Conclusion 57
6. W o r k s Cited 58
7. R e s u m e 61

7.1 English Resume 61

7.2 Czech R e s u m e 62

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 1. Introduction
The 19 th
century was without any doubt one of the most remarkable and crucial

periods in the history of Britain. Even though a n y century is a time long e n o u g h

for m a n y key events, the 1 9 th

century was particularly interesting, marked by the

great changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the

century, many people had still w o r k e d on the land a n d England w a s still very

much a nation of farmers and occasional small businesses. But the mechanization

a n d industrial development had soon changed the division of labor in the country

a n d people started to migrate to towns and cities in the prospect of better life

a n d higher wages. Unfortunately, this image was often not attainable. Harsh

working and living conditions were day to day reality for m a n y people, w h o

battled not only desperate poverty but also severe illnesses. Even though there

were advances not only in industrial power, but also in medicine, the poor had

often no means to afford any kind of medical care. As of the Poor Law Act of

1834 they were forced to live in w o r k h o u s e s that w e r e known for abuse and cruel

treatment.

However, this was not the only image fully reflecting the Victorian a g e . As Queen

Victoria's reign lasted for 64 years, the country experienced until then u n k n o w n

era of political stability and successful foreign policy. T h e British Empire had

g r o w n so much there had to be a new term coined - imperialism - to describe

w h a t was happening, especially during the 1870s and later o n . " B y the time of

the 1897 Diamond Jubilee celebrating the 60th year of Queen Victoria's rule, her

Empire contained one-quarter of the world's p o p u l a t i o n " (Mitchell 273).

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This dynamic environment of a growing society and nation w a s witnessed by

m a n y great authors including Charles Dickens w h o lived to see most of it ( 1 8 1 2 -

1870). He was one not only to see and observe w h a t life was like for (especially

the poor) Victorians during his long walks through the city of London, but he

experienced first-hand w h a t it meant to live without the necessary resources

during his childhood. At just twelve years old he had to start working 10 hours a

day to help his father support their family, only to see his efforts fail w h e n was

J o h n Dickens incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Y o u n g Charles then w o r k e d for a

man n a m e d J a m e s Lamert in a house overrun with rats 3 miles a w a y from his

h o m e . " H e was to take the bottles of blacking and prepare t h e m for sale. Not

bottles exactly, but receptacles rather like small flowerpots made of earthenware

a n d with a rim around t h e m for s t r i n g " (Ackroyd 4 5 - 4 6 ) .

His o w n life was therefore a great source of inspiration for his later literary works.

T h e t h e m e of poverty especially was present in all his novels, notably in Oliver

Twist ( 1 8 3 7 - 1 8 3 9 ) , The Old Curiosity Shop ( 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 4 1 ) , A Christmas Carol

(1843), Bleak House ( 1 8 5 2 - 1 8 5 3 ) , and Hard Times (1854). But poverty wasn't

the only thing that Dickens w a s concerned with. His interest of the social life w a s

much broader a n d included descriptions of meaning of h o m e and family, of the

differences between country a n d city, or one's o w n identity. He w a s also very

much invested in the problematics of law and justice and rather the lack of it

during the Victorian period.

T o better understand Dickens's starting points, w e will take a closer look at w h a t

it essentially meant to be a Victorian.

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T h e first chapter of the thesis presents a n overview of the most crucial events

affecting life in the Victorian times. Direct effects of the parliamentary reforms

a n d acts, important publications that reflected social attitudes a n d period

atmosphere, devastating epidemics etc. It deals with the t w o worlds that could've

been found in the Victorian period perhaps more than a n y other - the worlds of

the rich and the poor. Even though the title of the thesis suggests that the main

focus will be the mid-century England, the events of the previous decades and

state of the country towards the e n d of the century paint a fuller picture of w h a t

it was like to live in the hungry forties a n d later. T h e main sources for this chapter

were David Deirdre's The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2001),

together with T h o m a s Carlyle's Chartism (1840) a n d Friedrich Engels's The

Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845).

T h e second part is dedicated to the mid-Victorian novel - the tendencies of the

genre focusing on the political, social and industrial aspects of Victorian life, the

t h e m e s and main authors. A closer look on literacy and publishing is also included.

A great help with this particular chapter provided Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth and

her The English Novel in History 1840-1895(1997).

T h e third and final chapter then moves on to the analysis of the Bleak House

(1853) itself, focusing on a reflection of the Victorian legal system and its

significant shortcomings, social differences and the alarming living conditions of

the poorest, and entrenched social values. In particular, the position of men and

w o m e n a n d their expected and socially acceptable role. It assesses both the

chosen t h e m e and space-time of the novel, as well as selected stylistic means of

significance. This chapter uses the knowledge of the previous parts of the thesis

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for the analysis, however, several other sources were consulted, in which the

most useful proofed itself to be the biography Dickens (1990) by Peter A c k r o y d .

T h e thesis doesn't necessarily exhaust all the meanings and references hidden

inside the Bleak House as the text itself is extensive a n d offers a lot of

opportunities for interpretation. It is merely a n insight into the w a y Charles

Dickens may have thought about his time through the stories of his fiction.

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 2. Victorian Society

Victorian society would be best described by the words of Benjamin Disraeli, as

the state of " t w o nations". T h e r e existed t w o completely different worlds that can

drive two completely different, and yet both true historical interpretations of this

period. O n one hand, it w a s a desperate time of extreme poverty a n d alarming

living conditions for most of the nation, on the other, it w a s the peak of British

power a n d prosperity. It w a s a remarkable m o m e n t in history w h e n the British

Empire w a s at its best and at the s a m e time, the British people possibly at their

lowest. A great d e v e l o p m e n t of the industrial world mirrored in many drastic

c h a n g e s in everyday lives of the British people and massive progress was

noticeable even in the m a n a g e m e n t of the country a n d its legal system, even

though it w a s perhaps a little slower than it could've b e e n .

2.1 Timeline

T o better understand the extent and significance of the events that took place in

this particular e r a , a summarization of at least a few key milestones might be a

g o o d idea. T h e following chronological timeline doesn't necessarily e x h a u s t the

century's richness as it is, of course, selective. However, it should cover at least

the crucial points influencing the politics, and therefore by extension c o m m o n

folk's lives and literature; a n d serve as a useful o v e r v i e w . 1

1
For this summary, I've derived inspiration from a similar list put together by David Deirdre which
is why it is followed by a reference, however, in my version of the timeline, there are some events
omitted and others added or further explained, creating quite a different result.

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• 1801 Union of England and Ireland

• 1807 Atlantic slave trade outlawed

• 1812 Charles Dickens born

• 1815 Corn Law passed

• 1818 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein published

• 1819 Stamp Act was passed (as one of the results of the Peterloo Massacre)

• 1832 First Reform Bill

• 1833 Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire

• 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act

• 1836 Factory Act (slight improvement of working conditions for children - they

weren't allowed to work more than 48 hours per week in textile mills, if they were

under 13 years old)

• 1837 Victoria ascends to the throne

Benjamin Disraeli elected to Parliament

Paper duty reduced by 50 %

• 1838 Great Western Railway opens

• 1839 Custody of Infants Act (a shift in family law - women separated from their

husbands gained the right to seek custody of children under 7 years old; first

major legal recognition of women)

First Chartist petition presented to Parliament

• 1840 Thomas Carlyle's Chartism published

• 1841 London Library established

• 1842 Beginning of Mudie's circulating library

• 1843 Factory Act (women and children under 18 were limited to twelve-hour

workday)

• 1845 Beginning of the Great Famine

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 Benjamin Disraeli's Sybil; or the Two Nations published

Fried rich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England published

• 1847 Ten-hour Act (women and children under 18 were limited to ten-hour

workday)

• 1848 Revolution across Europe

Cholera epidemic

Queen's College, Oxford, founded to train and examine governesses, opening

higher education to women

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto first printed in London

• 1849 Corn Laws abolished

• 1850 Public Libraries Act

• 1851 The Crystal Palace Exhibition (celebration of the modern industrial

advances and design, organised by Prince Albert)

• 1852 Charles Dickens's Bleak House serial publication begins

• 1853 Cholera epidemic

Volume publication of Bleak House

• 1855 Newspaper stamp duty abolished (making the newspapers more affordable)

• 1859 Charles Darwin's Origin of Species published

• 1861 Duty on paper abolished (printed material made more affordable)

• 1866 Last major cholera epidemic

• 1867 Second Reform Bill (further reducing property qualification for the vote)

• 1869 Debtors Act abolished

• 1870 Education Act (elementary education available to all children in England

and Wales)

First Married Women's Property Act (women gained right to their own money

earned after marriage)

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 Death of Charles Dickens

• 1872 Voting by secret ballot instituted

• 1878 University of London allows women to take its degrees

Matrimonial Causes Act (protection for women experiencing domestic violence)

Electric lights installed on some streets in London

• 1880 Elementary education made compulsory from age 7 to 10

Employer's Liability Act (employers made liable for injuries at the workplace)

• 1882 Married Women's Property Act (married women gained the right to own

and control their own property)

• 1884 Third Reform Bill (extension of the right to vote)

• 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act (raises the age of consent for girls to sixteen

and makes sexual acts between males illegal)

• 1887 Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee

• 1889 Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act (children under 10 years old were not

supposed to be employed)

• 1897 Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

• 1899 School attendance mandatory to age 12

• 1901 Victoria dies; Edward VII ascends to the throne

(Deirdre xiii-xx)

2.2 The Rich and the Poor

Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as

ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in

different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who were formed by different

breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not

governed by the same laws... THE RICH AND THE POOR. (Disraeli 96)

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T h e Industrial Revolution e m e r g e d in England at the end of the 1 8 th
century, but

it fully began to flourish during the first three decades of the 1 9 th

century. People

of England were the first to experience the consequences of mechanization as

England w a s the first country to implement then modern technology into the very

roots of its e c o n o m y .

T h e Industrial Revolution had, taking a very simplified viewpoint, t w o immediate

effects on the state of society: increase of population in towns, w h e r e there w e r e

higher wages, or at least the promise of t h e m , and the development of a

m o n e y e d middle class. T h e restructuring of the society resulted in stratification,

or in the Victorian sense - the existence of classes. T h e r e are several divisions of

classes used by historians and literary scholars, but for our purposes, let's settle

o n the three basic ones: t h e u p p e r class (aristocracy and gentry), t h e middle

class (which w a s further divided by the a m o u n t of income to the family to upper

middle class - doctors, lawyers, solicitors; a n d lower middle class - bakers,

tailors, carpenters) and t h e w o r k i n g class.

Even though towards the end of the century, the differences between the rich

a n d the poor grew smaller, for the most part the Victorian society was still strictly

stratified by social status that was determined mainly by financial state of one's

household but also by family class inheritance. As many other times in the history,

having e n o u g h money in the Victorian times equalled having a life. Financial

background determined practically every aspect of one's life, starting with

a c c o m m o d a t i o n , healthcare or chances of getting a n y kind of education in hope

of a better future.

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 Social and economic distinctions have always existed, but I use the word [class] here

as most historians use it: to define a specifically post-Industrial Revolution,

nineteenth-century phenomenon. To traditional and Marxist historians alike, a class

society is set off against and aristocratic society as means of understanding the

transition into the modern industrial world. In Engels's terms, it was the Industrial

Revolution that created a new class, the urban proletariat (Prewitt Brown 70).

It c o m e s as no surprise that the direst w a s the situation of those w h o belonged

to the working class. According to Prewitt Brown, at the beginning of the century,

it w a s the most populous part of society: " I n 1803, the upper class, or those w h o

did not have to work for a living, comprised about 27,000 families, or 2 % of the

population; the middle ranks made up about 635,000 families; the lower ranks

about 1,347,000 families" (73). It is widely known that those poorest people lived

in terrible conditions, working long hours without ever making e n o u g h to provide

for their dearest and nearest. T h e y were dirty, without proper clothing for chilly

weather they often developed severe illnesses. T h e harshest w a s the poverty o n

children that w e r e expected to complete tasks that weren't suited for their a g e .

Most of the poor children w o r k e d at a certain point in factories for low w a g e s to

support their families up to sixteen hours a day, six days of the week, in

unsanitary conditions. S o m e of t h e m started there before the age of s e v e n . T h e y

were mostly illiterate as there was no time to send t h e m to school. A m o n g many

others, Friedrich Engels was conveniently one of the witnesses of the dreadful

situation which he later described in his The Condition of the Working Class in

England(1845). In regard to housing he wrote:

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 Every great city has one or more slums, where the working-class is crowded together.

(...) These slums are pretty equally arranged in all the great towns of England, the

worst houses in the worst quarters of the towns; usually one or two-storied cottages

in long rows, perhaps with cellars used as dwellings, almost always irregularly built.

(...) The streets are generally unpaved, rough, dirty, filled with vegetable and animal

refuse, without sewers or gutters, but supplied with foul, stagnant pools instead.

Moreover, ventilation is impeded by the bad, confused method of building of the

whole quarter, and since many human beings here live crowded into a small space,

the atmosphere that prevails in these working-men's quarters may readily be

imagined. Further, the streets serve as drying grounds in fine weather; lines are

stretched across from house to house, and hung with wet clothing. (26)

By the 1850s there were brick buildings to a c c o m m o d a t e workers in towns, but

even though they appeared to provide at least a stable shelter, they were

dangerously o v e r c r o w d e d , and therefore breeding grounds for diseases such as

smallpox and cholera.

T o w a r d s the mid-century the divide between the classes w a s probably the

greatest. But even before the hungry forties, the d e e p social differences resulted

in civil unrest a n d establishment of w h a t later b e c o m e known as the Chartist

Movement. T h e People's Charter of 1838 d e m a n d e d six points for necessary

immediate change - a vote for every m a n , a secret ballot, annual parliamentary

elections, equal electoral districts, no property qualification for Members of

Parliament and payment of the Members of Parliament. " T h e s e six points w e r e

all intended to make the British system of voting and parliamentary

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representation fairer and less biased in favour of the property-and business-

o w n i n g classes. But the Charter was - predictably - overwhelmingly rejected by

Parliament in 1839, and a second petition was thrown out in 1 8 4 2 " (Dennis 1 1 -

12). Even though, the pressure was quite intense, these requirements were only

almost fulfilled by the Third Reform Bill more than 45 years later.

We have heard it asked, Why Parliament throws no light on this question of the

Working Classes, and the condition or disposition they are in? Truly to a remote

observer of Parliamentary procedure it seems surprising, especially in late Reformed

times, to see what space this question occupies in the Debates of the Nation. Can any

other business whatsoever be so pressing on legislators? A Reformed Parliament, one

would think, should inquire into popular discontents before they get the length of

pikes and torches! (Carlyle 7)

The secret ballot was particularly important, as the voting before its

implementation took place in public. W h e n y o u have finally belonged to the

category of population that had the right to vote, y o u were forced to d o so and

declare your political preference out loud on the street and naturally face an

immediate reaction of the remaining crowd and other consequences.

Another p h e n o m e n o n of this era became to known under the term " w o r k h o u s e " .

T h e s e were re-instituted (as there were not completely brand-new solution in

Britain) by the 1834 Poor Law A m e n d m e n t A c t that w a s supposed to put people

out of the street. T h o s e w h o couldn't support themselves were forced to live and

work there with the seemingly comforting vision of a steady food supply and a

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roof over one's head. T h e reality of w o r k h o u s e s was, however, quite different

from that prospect. O n c e again, they were overcrowded, witch large c o m m o n

rooms w h e r e people slept together without any hope for privacy. T h e work that

was d e m a n d e d from t h e m was often very harsh and the food they received

wasn't nourishing. Usually they w e r e given small portions of porridge without the

possibility of getting more. W o r k h o u s e s only solved the inconvenience of having

the poverty out on the street, before people's eyes. T h e y w e r e far from solving

the actual problem and the only effect on poverty they had was putting it out of

sight and keep it as hidden as possible.

Even though these realities were something Dickens could have witnessed first-

hand, he was many times inspired and encouraged in his work by the publications

of the period social critics and activists, including T h o m a s Carlyle, Friedrich

Engels, Henry M a y h e w (and his London Labour and the London Poor, 1851) or

Edwin Chadwick a n d his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring

Population of Great Britain (1843). In a way, he w a n t e d to address the same

topics - poverty, unemployment, health, crime, education, the problems of

workhouses, but examine them in literature.

T h e division of the society wasn't, however, all just about money and with it

c o m i n g opportunities, the need to work for a living or the ownership of property

a n d land. Social status w a s the dependent also on religion and political affiliation.

"Socially, the line w a s d r a w n between t o w n a n d country. This distinction s e e m e d

to affect the working class more than any other. For example, country workers

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were far more likely to be politically conservative and members of the Church of

England than city workers, w h o were increasingly apathetic about religion and

more radical politically" (Prewitt Brown 73).

Another important factor that determined w h a t your life was going to look like

was, of course, gender. 1 9 th

century w a s basically the first time period that

started to notice w o m e n ' s rights and slowly began building their place within the

legal system. But even though w o m e n gained s o m e basic assurance of support

in law, their social roles w e r e more constant. A w o m a n w a s still expected to take

care of a household, to create a h o m e for her husband and her children and to

pay her attention primarily to those responsibilities before anything else. Upper-

a n d middle-class w o m a n w a s not expected to work because she was perceived

as a testament to her husband's success and the wealth provided by it. Men were,

o n the contrary, expected to d o business, their d o m a i n was meant to be the

outside world, not the safe shelter of h o m e . W o m e n were gradually gaining

access to education, work, their o w n possessions etc., but the outlook on a

w o m a n ' s role was still very much traditional.

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 3. Mid-Victorian Novel

T h e Victorian society often found its reflection in its literature. Of course, one

might argue that the literature is fiction and even biographies or documentative

pieces are still deliberately shaped by the author's intention - the inclination to

leave something out or focus too much attention to certain chosen aspects of

reality, but there is still an inspiration that is d r a w n from the environment

surrounding us a n d the historical period w e live in. A n d this w a s no different for

the Victorian novelists.

T h e Victorian novel w a s a n extremely popular genre that had two immediate

functions. It was a w a y to escape the everyday m u n d a n e realities and as any

other art form provided entertainment a n d a m u s e m e n t . But besides this, people

looked to it for instruction. In a time full a c h a n g e and therefore often uncertainty,

they were reassured by reading about people that struggled the same w a y they

did.

3.1 Theme and Topicality

W h e t h e r y o u were a man or a w o m a n during the Victorian e r a , it w a s necessary

to adapt to the abrupt c h a n g e s , to find your place within the newly formed and

still evolving state of society. T h e novel of this time reflected this need through

t w o main themes - the depiction of Victorian society as a whole, and the

adjustment of the individual to this society. As Shires puts it "the main subject

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matter of the Victorian novel is the relation between self and society, a topic that

can be explored in many different w a y s " (Shires 61).

T h o s e different ways w e r e recognizable in narrower thematic as well as writing

style, choice of characters and their characterization, ways of narration, approach

to description, temporality or space.

T h e obvious inspiration that was provided by the period's events cannot,

however, be confused with the actual state of things. As close to the reality as

a n author of a fiction can get in his or her story, it is not safe to a s s u m e that the

novel represents the accurate picture of the time. It is also vital to remind that

the novel of the 1 9 th

century was still very much a genre finding and defining

itself. " W h e n Q u e e n Victoria c a m e to the throne in 1837 the novel was barely

past its infancy. Fiction had existed as long as h u m a n consciousness, of course,

but the novel - 'fiction in prose of a certain length', to give it one classic, hold-all

definition - really dates back no further than the 1 8 th

c e n t u r y " (Dennis 6). T h e

beginning of the English novel is often seen in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

(1719). Other major contributors to the genre are considered to be Samuel

Richardson {Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, 1740), Henry Fielding {Joseph

Andrews, 1742), Laurence Sterne {Tristram Shandy, 1 7 5 9 - 1 7 6 7 ) or Tobias

Smollet {The Adventures of Roderick Random, 1748), w h o is known to later

heavily influence Charles Dickens, w h o " s h o w e d himself as a glorification of

Smollett, narrating action in Smollett's rattling many-claused prose, though

proceeding differently in dialogue a n d description" (Tillotson 117).

Apart from Charles Dickens, a m o n g those w h o continued the d e v e l o p m e n t of the

new genre in the 1 9 th

century were great n a m e s such as Charlotte Bronte, Emily

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Bronte, Benjamin Disraeli, A n t h o n y Trollope, George Elliot, William Thackeray,

Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, T h o m a s Hardy, George Meredith or Henry

J a m e s . Not only thanks to these names, " b y the time Q u e e n Victoria celebrated

her Golden Jubilee in 1887 the novel had b e c o m e the most sophisticated art form

of the c e n t u r y " (Dennis 6 - 7 ) .

T h e standard mid-Victorian novel was mainly concerned with several basic topics

- politics, industry (and the contrast of natural and industrial world) and poverty

closely connected to it, religion a n d search for identity. T h o s e were more or less

addressed in all major works, with predominance of one or the other.

T h e political novel was set to deal with the principles that moved the national

decision making in a certain direction. One of the masters of this specific discipline

was A n t h o n y Trollope with his Parliamentary novels Can You Forgive Her?{1865),

Phineas Finn (1869), The Eustace Diamonds(1873) or The Prime Minister (1876).

Another distinctive authoress on this field was Mary A n n e Evans, known under

her pen n a m e George Eliot. In Middlemarch (1872) she describes the a t m o s p h e r e

of the election after the First Reform Bill of 1832, in Felix Holt, the Radical'(1866)

set once again around the time of the First Reform Bill, she, " s p e a k i n g through

the persona of Felix Holt, a humble y o u n g artisan, urges the newly enfranchised

electorate of working people that their hope of improvement lies not in this or

that legislative program, but in e d u c a t i o n " (Dennis 36). T h e topicality of this novel

was confirmed by the 1870 Education Act that enabled all children of England

a n d Wales to access elementary education.

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T h e novel that could be called industrial was always very closely knitted to the

social problems. This was accented by Elizabeth Gaskell and her Mary Barton

(1848) that brings the reader to better understand the difficulties of the working

class in the city of Manchester between 1839 a n d 1842. Another example of the

industrial novel could be seen in Benjamin Disraeli's Sibyl; or the Two Nations

(1845) or in Dickens's Hard Times (1854), w h e r e his target is " t h e whole

philosophy of industrialism rather than any specific industrial a b u s e " (Dennis 3 7 -

38). Hard Times also represents a very important attack o n Utilitarianism, a

philosophic system based o n the ideas of J e r e m y B e n t h a m , which falsely

rationalized a lot of cruelty witnessed by everyday life. Its major message w a s

that the greatest are the things that are useful a n d serve the happiness of the

greatest a m o u n t of people.

S e a r c h for identity was often a topic treated by w o m e n authors - one example

for all, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847) is almost a n encyclopedic v o y a g e of

self-discovery. T h e life of the individual in the family, defining your relationship

to society, defining your role within a marriage, those were all questions one had

to ask themselves. But the challenge of finding a place for yourself in the Victorian

times wasn't limited just to the fairer sex. A tough j o u r n e y awaited children

d e p e n d e n t on self-help, that represented also a c o m m o n concern for the

Victorian novelists. " T h e figure of the vulnerable, innocent child, a legacy of the

Romantic m o v e m e n t and a key Victorian symbol, haunts many of the major

novels of the period: Dickens's Florence Dombey and David Copperfield,

Thackeray's Henry Esmond, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Emily Bronte's

22
Heathcliff are all memorable as c h i l d r e n " (Wheeler 55). Not to mention Dickens's

Pip from Great Expectations (1861) or Oliver Twist.

T h e process of finding oneself was closely connected to the struggle of the

individual in the developing w o r l d . Especially towards the end of the century,

there w a s a growing gap between the old and the new, the conflict between t w o

different set of values that w e r e related also to the imagery of the country and

city. T h e s e w e r e addressed by T h o m a s Hardy and his so-called Novels of

Character and Environment that "all concern the struggle of the individual with

the hostile or, at best, indifferent forces of nature. This struggle is represented

in The Return of the Native (1874) or in The Woodlanders ( 1 8 8 7 ) " (Dennis 4 4 ) .

However, natural setting did experience a shift in meaning throughout the

century. In its first half, nature w a s generally understood as something close,

native, comforting and hospitable. " A r o u n d mid-century, as the historical

aesthetic gains a n almost sudden ascendancy over the providential, mid-century

novelists experiment with a n entirely social, secular construction of human

possibility. Great moralists like Charlotte Bronte or William T h a c k e r a y seek

justification in nature, while George Eliot or A n t h o n y Trollope refer all questions

of moral agency and social justice to entirely socialized h u m a n a c t i o n " (Ermarth

3).

T h e idea of contrast between social natural order was further supported by

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species (1859) and later The Descend of

Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) that once again contributed to the

problematic debate on gender equality.

23
W h e t h e r the novelists inclined to the natural or the social solution, they still had

in c o m m o n the support of the individual and agitation on morality. But w h a t was

morally accepted a n d w h a t was not w a s slightly differentiated by religion. T h a t

brings us back to question of self. Even though it was not yet time of Freud's

psychoanalysis, the question of self was on the table for a long time because of

religion. T o behave in a certain w a y and to keep your desires in check was a

matter of self-control. Being selfless rather than selfish, not to give in to the

temptation, to be obedient and accomplished in assigned duties - those were

formulas that were expected to be fulfilled by the Victorian citizen. Gradually, the

rediscovery of one's self allowed the outlook on those responsibilities to be much

more positive and less j u d g m e n t a l .

Even though the Victorian ways w e r e subject to severe criticism by many, the

final attack on Victorian values provided novel by Samuel Butler, The Way of All

Flesh, published in 1903. Butler started writing it in 1873 but w a s afraid of the

consequences the publication might bear for him while he was still alive, so he

ordered for the book to be released only after his d e a t h .

3.2 Storytelling

T o be a novelist in the 1 9 th
century meant as at any other time - to take the

opportunity to speak your mind, influence your readers and touch as many as

you can through the written w o r d . But in order to d o that a novelist needed to

take into consideration w h a t people w a n t e d to read and w h a t they were willing

to read. A n d for the Victorians, it was for the most part realism. It the first half

24
of the century there w a s a still heavy influence of romanticism and not everyone

necessary belonged to the realistic school of writing, including Dickens. "Dickens,

in spite of his e n o r m o u s popularity, never really belonged to this school of

photographic realism, though without question his characters are full o f ' l i f e of a

vivid k i n d ' " (Dennis 59). However, a r o u n d the middle decades of the century,

realism was the tendency that was the most sought after.

Victorian storytelling w a s therefore based o n a simple premise of presenting

things as they were, not avoiding the description of a raw, everyday, m u n d a n e

a n d ordinary life. T h e r e was an accent on factual accuracy and detail. Victorian

authors usually created quite complex and complicated plots that included a wide

range of characters. T h e novel was used also as a means of communication and

novelists often c o m m u n i c a t e d with their readers through the 3 r d

person narrator

that wasn't as authoritative as one might expect. T h e narrator frequently reached

out to the reader with a remark of his o w n , sarcastic c o m m e n t or with a question

for the reader to consider. " F o r very many Victorians, readers and critics alike,

the personality of the narrator w a s o n e of the most attractive features of a novel.

T h e narrator, in fact, is a character in his/her o w n right" (Dennis 61). Quite

popular was also the first-person narration for its engaging appeal. T o use one

or the other voice of narration was a safe choice, to experiment with their

combination as did Dickens in Bleak House, was for its time quite revolutionary.

With the omniscient narrator, Dickens was able to survey the whole of society and

picture the cruelty and selfishness which permeated it at every level. The novel opens

famously with the omniscient narrator's description of the fog which - metaphorically

25
 - covers England but is centered most thickly over the High Court of Chancery, the

legal heart of England which dominates the story of Bleak House. In the parallel

narrative, in the voice of the demure, limited and sometimes irritating Esther

Summerson, the pace and movement of the novel change regularly as the point of

view narrows - the contrast Dickens thus achieves is one of the most striking features

of Bleak House. He also uses the opportunity to present the dual point of view of

crucial incidents in the novel, such as the account of the search for Lady Dedlock.

(Dennis 62)

3.3 The Publisher and the Reader

In order to get book o n the market, it w a s necessary to keep up with the literary

standards of the period. T h e d e m a n d was, of course, fed by the expectations of

the public, but also the publishers. T h e novel simply had to sell. Dickens was

particularly lucky in this d e p a r t m e n t as he was one of the most popular and read

authors of his time. Even though the best sellers remained the Bible and the New

T e s t a m e n t , Dickens had no difficulties passing the publisher's test of potential to

make money. His popularity wasn't limited even by his o w n country, as he w a s

"the best-known, best-selling Victorian author o n the New York n e w s s t a n d s "

(Weisbuch 234). This w a s possible because all throughout the 1 9 th

century up to

1891 w h e n the Platt-Simonds Bill passed in the US Congress, "there was no

legally binding copyright a r r a n g e m e n t between the UK a n d the USA. British

authors w e r e frequently reprinted in the USA, a n d US authors in Britain, without

a n y payment whatsoever. Even w h e n s o m e private a r r a n g e m e n t had been made

between publishers on both side of the Atlantic, payments were usually very

m o d e s t " (Eliot 52).

26
But as great as Dickens's fame was, even he had to obey by the basic principles

that a c c o m p a n i e d creative writing in the Victorian period. One of the expected

outcomes of the author's work was a novel that was simply long e n o u g h . T h e

standard length was a three-decker, that means a novel of three v o l u m e s . " E a c h

v o l u m e w a s usually priced at five shillings or six shillings so a three-volume novel

would normally retail at between fifteen shillings and eighteen shillings" (Eliot

37). However, three-deckers usually followed serial publication in the newspapers

as for many people, and especially the working class, to buy a hard copy of the

final three volumes was rather expensive. T h e price of the paper wasn't ultimately

lower, but the costs w e r e spread out. Usually, the chapters were released weekly,

only later c a m e the trend to d o so monthly. Dickens was one of the authors w h o

published almost all his novels like this. " H e took the idea of novels in parts from

the working-class form and w e n t upmarket with it. Instead of w e e k l y parts at a

penny he offered monthly parts at a shilling. T h e r e was a strictly limited n u m b e r

of parts: twenty, which were serialized over nineteen months (the final part w a s

a double issue at two shillings). T h u s , at the end of nineteen months the reader

had an entire novel for a pound rather thirty-one shillings and s i x p e n c e " (Eliot

44).

This w a y of publication had its direct effect on the w a y of writing. T h e author

had to think a h e a d of himself to be sure he's got e n o u g h material for the next

issues, the chapters released together had to be dramatically balanced and carry

a mini story of their o w n , and inevitably, there had to be cliffhangers at the e n d

of each published number. Other writers, including William Thackeray, Anthony

Trollope or William Harrison had experimented with monthly serialization, but

27
none was as successful as Dickens. Apart from creating eager anticipation of the

next issue, Dickens was able to make a lot of money this way.

Successful serialization was a very effective way of generating income for a writer

and sustaining that income over a long period. Quite apart from that, each part

of a successful twenty monthly-part novel, such as Dombey and Son, would

consist of thirty-two pages of the story plus a minimum of sixteen pages of

advertisements. The "advertiser," as this supplement that surrounded and gave

a context to the serialized novel was called, could itself be very profitable. Over

the nineteen months of Dombey and Sorts run, The Dombey advertiser earned

Dickens and his publishers, Chapman and Hall, £2,027 and one shilling. (Eliot 45)

Another advantage of this a r r a n g e m e n t w a s the immediate reader's response to

the story that kept the novelist in touch with w h a t the public was hungry for.

Another e l e m e n t that provided almost immediate feedback were parodies. Of

those was Dickens a frequent target during his time (Anthony Trollope), but also

after it (James Joyce).

But serial publication wasn't the only solution to the expensive three-decker

novel. Another a n s w e r to this problem w a s a lending library, most famously

Mudie's. Charles Edward Mudie had opened his first Select Library in

S o u t h a m p t o n Row in Bloomsbury in 1842. Very cleverly, Mudie selected for his

library only books he thought morally acceptable. Nothing that could be perceived

as offensive, distressing, upsetting a child or insulting a parent, wasn't accepted.

This w a y Mudie "inevitably acquired, and then cultivated, the role of censor. T h e

28
exercise of this role also made commercial sense. In filtering out dangerous or

corrupting literature, Mudie provided a safe and positive e n v i r o n m e n t for middle-

class w o m e n and children, always thought to be the most vulnerable. In providing

a safe environment he stimulated c u s t o m . (...) A three-decker novel he did not

order would be one that struggled to clear its costs. A three-decker novel he did

order was likely to make s o m e sort of profit for the publisher, e v e n if sales

afterwards were disappointing" (Eliot 4 0 ) . Which was the reason w h y many

publishers naturally asked themselves w h e n embarking on a new project whether

this w a s a story that has a chance with Mudie or not.

Especially in the second half of the century, the three-decker had a serious

competition in a newly established first paperback of its time known as a "railway

n o v e l " or a " y e l l o w b a c k " because of its often yellow-glazed boards. With the rising

popularity of railway transportation, one v o l u m e a n d a smaller format of 17,5 by

12,2 centimeters with an illustration at the front and an advertisement at the

back was more attractive, practical and much cheaper.

Another aspect of Victorian publishing was authorship. It w a s a tough

environment for w o m e n w h o often feared their work wouldn't be accepted or

well received if the critics (or maybe even the public) knew they were written by

t h e m . For that reason, many of t h e m opted for p s e u d o n y m s - Mary A n n Evans

b e c a m e known as George Eliot, the Bronte's sisters used for their first publication

of poems names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

29
With all this effort to get a book successfully to the reader, the question of w h o

actually the reader of Victorian literature was e m e r g e s . T h e r e is no d o u b t that

the novel w a s meant for everybody, however, the greatest sympathies, especially

with Dickens's pieces were felt by the poorest. T h e difficulty with this reality was

that for much of the 1 9 th

century, those w h o belonged to the so-called working

class of Britain were largely illiterate. "Until the Education Act of 1870, introduced

by W . E . Forster during Gladstone's first term as Prime Minister, education was

mainly in the hands of the c h u r c h " (Dennis 63). A n d Church educated only a

fraction of England's children. " O n the whole, more people were literate in towns

than the countryside. Until a r o u n d 1900 men were more likely to be literate than

w o m e n " (Eliot 4 3 ) . Overall, literacy was likely to be higher in Protestant families,

as the Protestants believed that the only w a y to save one's soul w a s through the

God's w o r d that is Bible.

It is almost impossible to confidently quantify how many English people had the

luxury of understanding the written w o r d as there are no statistics to prove it.

T h e r e is, however, one almost detective method that at least gives us an idea of

the Victorian literacy rate a n d that is marriage certificate. In order for the

marriage to be valid, it had to be signed by four people - the bride, the g r o o m

a n d the t w o witnesses. T h e handwriting of those signatures usually provided

more or less reliable evidence of w h o was knew to the process and w h o had

s o m e previous knowledge of it. T o this Eliot provides more details:

Despite all the problems, by 1841 in England and Wales about 67 percent of men

and 51 percent of women were able to sign a marriage register. By 1871 these

30
 figures were 81 percent and 73 percent respectively. By 1900 ninety-seven

percent of both men and women signed the register. 1913 marked the first year

in which over ninety-nine percent of both sexes could sign. The UK achieved a

fully literate population just in time for everyone to be able to read the posted

lists of the dead and missing in the First World War. (43)

However, in the mid-century, even though Britain was still at least 60 years from

having a fully literate population, there was another p h e n o m e n o n that should not

be overlooked. " W e ought to g o back to 1850 for one important detail. In that

year almost all marriages involving a middle-class g r o o m were fully literature,

that is, all four participants (bride, g r o o m , both witnesses) could sign the register.

But in marriages w h e r e the g r o o m w a s an unskilled laborer, only one marriage

in thirteen had four literate signatories. However, in three-quarters of these

unskilled laborer marriages, at least one participant could w r i t e " (Eliot 4 3 ) . T h a t

means that most of the people w h o didn't learn how to read, had in their

immediate family or neighborhood s o m e o n e w h o did.

Therefore, in order to enjoy literature, learning how to read wasn't the only way.

It w a s quite c o m m o n that interesting newspaper stories or news of great

importance were read out loud o n the street a n d even parts of certain novels

were mediated to the illiterate by those w h o were fortunate e n o u g h to master

this important skill.

31
 4. The Gloom of the Bleak House
Charles Dickens became the emotional conscience of England as he identified

himself with the poor and never stopped criticizing the society that even though

it may have known its failings, refused, for the most part, to do anything about

t h e m . T h e impact he had even during his life (which is a feat not many authors

or great artists achieve) was nicely illustrated immediately after his death in J u n e

of 1870. As Ackroyd appropriately recalls T h e Daily News then wrote "'He w a s

emphatically the novelist of his age. In his pictures of contemporary life posterity

will read, more clearly than in contemporary records, the character of nineteenth

century life'" (xii). Even though he had previously asked for a simple and quiet

funeral without a n y absurdities of expensive ceremonies, he was dearly missed,

a n d m a n y people c a m e to Westminster A b b e y to pay their respects. " E v e n to the

laboring men and w o m e n there was in his death a grievous sense of loss; they

felt that he had in large measure understood t h e m and that, in his d e a t h , they

had also lost something of t h e m s e l v e s " (Ackroyd xiii).

Bleak House is essentially one of the three great Dickens's masterpieces

significantly concerned with social issues alongside of Little Dorrit (1855-1857)

and Our Mutual Friend ( 1 8 6 4 - 1 8 6 5 ) . In Bleak House he deals with the

complicated and often unjustly practices of the law in Victorian England, in Little

Dorrit there is primarily the t h e m e of law a n d debt - the absurd institution of

debtors' p r i s o n - a n d Our Mutual

2
Friend w h e r e he emphasizes the c o n s u m i n g

power of greed and money.

2
As Barbara Dennis further comments: „Little Dorrit (...) is Dickens's hardest view of
contemporary society, and his most savage indictment of a materialistic age. In it he lashes the

32
T h e initial reception of Bleak House wasn't necessarily favorable by the period

critics, although Dickens w a s by the time, he published it already a well-known

a n d experienced author. T h e review in the Spectator c a m e to be known for

its fearless a n d distinctive articles and is today the longest continually published

magazine in English was particularly expressive:

London, but it is so unskilfully managed that the daughter is in no way influenced

either in character or destiny by her mother's history; and the mother, her

husband, the prying solicitor, the French maid, and the whole Dedlock set, might

be eliminated from the book without damage to the great Chancery suit, or

perceptible effect upon the remaining characters. We should then have less

crowd, and no story; and the book might be called 'Bleak House, or the Odd Folks

that have to do with a long Chancery Suit.' (Brimley 16)

But the general public loved it as much as it d e s e r v e d . " T h e serial w a s a great

success. By the e n d of the day of publication, the first n u m b e r had sold out and

reprinting had begun. (...) By the end of June, 38 500 copies of the first n u m b e r

had been printed." (Page 169). Bleak House was originally published in nineteen

monthly instalments between March 1852 and September 1853, with the last

n u m b e r as a double issue.

Dickens was a great observer of the life around him since he was a child. His

later journalistic work (since 1850 in his w e e k l y journal Household Words)

c o m b i n e d with those innate observation skills refined his ability to see and in a

greed and hypocrisy masked by the Utilitarian ethic, and the abuses of privilege apparent in
government. (.••) Every image in the novel is of decay, oppression, gloom, disease and death,
and the central theme is of imprisonment." (38)

33
surprisingly intelligible and light w a y describe the burning and painful realities of

his time. A n d even though Brimley evidently wasn't at first the greatest fan of

the new Dickens's book, he didn't go that far to dispute his abilities and talent -

"Clever he undoubtedly is; ..." (16).

4.1 The Law

As the Victorian times saw great c h a n g e s in industrialization, mechanization, work

conditions, travel and m a n y more, it is only natural that the changes in the legal

system that had to deal with the new situations, relationships and interests

followed. T h e y were reflected in literature of the age by many authors, yet

Dickens's interest in the practices of the law stood out a m o n g others in more

than one aspect.

O n e of the main plots of the Bleak House is the civil lawsuit of Jarndyce and

Jarndyce that drags on for over 70 years and by the time it gets to its

d e n o u e m e n t , all the money that were the initial cause of the dispute had been

lost on legal fees a n d during the absurdly long court proceedings. Also, the people

the lawsuit originally involved, are already d e a d . T h e suit is so complicated, no

one r e m e m b e r s w h a t is actually w a s about a n d , except for a few people (incl.

Richard Carstone and the old mad lady w h o is always in court) no one cares

a n y m o r e . T h e case is handled by the High Court of Chancery w h e r e all civil cases,

including disputes over property, wills a n d trusts, w e r e dealt with. In Dickens's

time it was not at all u n c o m m o n that it took the Court several years to c o m e to

a verdict and by that time, the original dispute often became irrelevant. Dickens

was a witness to these trials during his years as a " y o u n g office boy in a firm of

34
attorneys a n d , a little later, as a shorthand reporter of covering court c a s e s "

(Roberts xxiii). Roberts, in her introduction to the Wordsworth Classics

publication of Bleak House, continues with a remark of s o m e period cases Dickens

was familiar with.

The Jarndyce suit had it parallels in several notorious cases known to Dickens:

notably the Day case, dating from 1834, which had involved anything from

seventeen to forty lawyers at any one point, and was still unsettled, with accrued

costs of £70,000, as Dickens wrote; and the Jennings case, which dated from

1798 and was spun out until 1878, with costs at £250,000. (Roberts xxiii)

Dickens himself mentions this circumstance of his book in the preface to the Bleak

House in August 1953.

At the present moment there is a suit before the Court which was commenced

nearly twenty years ago; in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known

to appear at one time; in which costs have been incurred to the amount of

seventy thousand pounds; which is a friendly suit, and which is (I am assured)

no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is another well-

known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close

of the last century, and in which more than double the amount of seventy

thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. (Dickens xxxiii)

Dickens's take on this inefficient system is clear from the begging of the novel.

T h e ever-present fog that surrounds London is of course partly a description of

35
the environment people in the city lived in, but it also references the Court that

doesn't serve the people as it should.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river,... fog down the river,... The raw afternoon is

rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest, near

that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a

leaden-headed old corporation: Temple Bar . And hard by the Temple Bar, in
3

Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High

Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery- (Dickens 3-4)

But he doesn't hint his feelings towards the court system just by a not so subtle

metaphor. In the first chapter alone, he takes quite a clear stand on w h a t he

thinks about the Court of Chancery a n d manifests his frustration with it several

times throughout the text. T h e Court of Chancery is according to the narrator a

place " w h i c h so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope; so overthrows the

brain a n d breaks the heart" (4). T h a t it truly is a place of a complete despair is

accentuated by the narrator's wish that any honorable man working there would

give any living soul wanting to enter its premises a fair warning "suffer any wrong

that can be d o n e y o u , rather than c o m e h e r e ! " (4). Which also points o u t the

absolute uselessness of such an institution.

Furthermore, the illustration of the legal system also mirrors in the Jarndyce and

Jarndyce suit itself - "[Jarndyce a n d Jarndyce] has passed into a j o k e " (6). It is

used as a reference to all complicated, convoluted a n d irresolvable a m o n g the

3
Temple Bar was the principal entrance to the old City of London on its western side.

36
clerks and no one realistically believes that it could be ever over. A g a i n , w h a t is

alarming about that state, is that no one thinks of the insolvability as of a

problem. It is simply accepted as a natural p h e n o m e n o n which suggest there is

truly something very w r o n g with the state of the entire country and the general

thinking of the society: "It is a cause that could not exist, out of this free and

great c o u n t r y " (Dickens 18).

4.2 The Importance of Being Esther

Esther S u m m e r s o n is one of the most peculiar characters of the Bleak House,

basically the main o n e . Her role in the novel is essential and e n c o m p a s s e s a large

portion of Dickens's criticism of certain aspects of the Victorian life. Esther's

likeability and character has been widely discussed by many scholars, enthusiastic

readers or simply fans of Dickens's work as she used to be marked shallow and

psychologically uninteresting. Many Dickens's critics have not been kind to Esther,

as for instance Marsh summarizes:

Several others disliked Esther's self-deprecating narrative. George Brimley

remarked cattily, 'it is impossible to doubt the simplicity of her [Esther's] nature,

because she never omits to assert it'. Even John Forster, Dickens's friend and

biographer, found Esther'A difficult exercise, full of hazard in any case, not worth

success and certainly not successful', while Charlotte Bronte expressed another

divided opinion: 'I liked the Chancery sections, but when it passes into the

autobiographical form... it seems to me too often weak and twaddling.' (209)

37
In the famous review of Bleak House in Spectator George Brimley adds: " S u c h a

girl w o u l d not write her o w n memoirs, and certainly w o u l d not bore one with her

goodness till a wicked wish arises that she would either d o something very ,spicy/

or confine herself to superintending the jam-pots at Bleak House" (16). This

serves as an e x a m p l e of the d e e p intricacy of the novel that was maybe not fully

discovered by many of Dickens's contemporaries.

Esther is in fact a rather fascinating piece of fiction. She is a n illegitimate child of

a fallen w o m a n which is a sad a traumatic reality of her life that influences almost

every aspect of it. After not a particularly happy childhood she is taken under the

wings of a kind guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, in w h o s e h o m e she becomes blossoms

but yet again, in a very unexpected manner. As soon as she arrives in the Bleak

house, she becomes its housekeeper. Her entire life is a c c o m p a n i e d by an effort

to please other people, to subdue any kind of wishes or desires, to work to

deserve love, or at least diminish the terrible a n d irreversible reality of her

existence. I imagine that there many symbols and major themes in the life of

Esther that I may have not seen, but there are few that I w a s able to at least

partly uncover.

4.2.1 Poor Parenting

As mentioned above, Esther is the testament to the life that was in m a n y cases

inevitable for children of so-called fallen w o m e n . She is constantly reminded of

the s h a m e she essentially embodies and deeply suffers from the c o n s e q u e n c e s

38
of her social status. Alex Zwerdling, unlike many before him, thinks Esther is " o n e

of the triumphs of his [Dickens's] art, a subtle psychological portrait clear in its

outlines and convincing in its details" (429). He completely disputes the original

perception of Esther as the unexciting, simple and at times even annoying

character a n d suggests that Esther's brilliance lies in her s e e m i n g faults and

shallowness as she is essentially a child suffering from abuse - or to be fair,

parental neglect. Zwerdling then continues: " B e t w e e n Oliver Twist a n d Bleak

House, his [Dickens's] vision of childhood suffering became much more

psychological. Oliver's deprivation is primarily physical, external. By the time

Dickens c a m e to write Dombey andSon, he had b e c o m e more interested in the

child deprived of love than of food and shelter, and this shift is clearly reflected

both in David Copperfieldand in Bleak House" (429).

For this impression of Esther there is quite a lot of evidence in the novel that

supports Zwerdling's views. Esther was very much deprived of parental love in

her childhood - Ms. Barbary w h o raised her, made it a tradition not to perceive

her birthday as a merry event, but rather as a n inevitable reminder of the tragedy

of Esther's existence.

She raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly in a cold,

low voice - I see her knitted brow and pointed finger - 'Your mother, Esther, is

your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come - and soon enough - when

you will understand this better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.

I have forgiven her' - but her face did not relent - 'the wrong she did to me, and

I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know - than any

one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned

39
 and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of

others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written. Forget your

mother and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child

that greatest kindness. Now, go!' (Dickens 16).

Esther w a s frequently told that it would be better if she was never born a n d she

only knew that a birthday should be a merry event from other girls she knew

from school. T h e r e c o m e s no consolation for her even from Mrs Rachael, w h o is

as cold to her as her g o d m o t h e r and w h e n Esther is sent to Greenleaf, doesn't

even shed a tear. However, as every w r o n g that happens to Esther, she takes it

upon herself: " I felt so miserable a n d self-reproachful, that I clung to her a n d

told her it was my fault, I knew, that she could say goodbye so easily!" (Dickens

20).

Esther accepts that she is not good e n o u g h , she makes it her identity that she is

not worthy of love, that she is poor and insignificant. This is the t h e m e of her

entire childhood that translates also into her adult life. She never believes any

compliments that c o m e her w a y but is still hungry for t h e m a n d thrives on the

feeling of being appreciated. Esther adopts this self-deprecating narrative - it is

her life attitude that she should work as hard as possible to earn love or at least

repair the terrible reality of her birth. She lives her life as a n apology to all the

people that had been unfortunate e n o u g h to meet her. Even this may seem as a

terrible toxic and dangerous w a y of thinking, it does prove her strength a n d

instinct to survive. T i m o t h y Peltason c o m p l e m e n t s this assumption of mine

followingly: " T i m i d , self-blaming, and kind of moral bully to herself, she cannot

40
easily be bullied by others, and her removal from one kind of active life is also a

form of p o w e r " (673).

An essential characteristic of Esther lies in the fact that she is the only figure of

the fictional world that is given its o w n voice. She and the 3 r d
person narrator

take turns in the storytelling. Esther's voice of narration is at first glance and from

the first introduction to it very different. Her first part of the story begins with

her impression of inability to even be a storyteller: " I have a great deal of difficulty

in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I a m not clever. I

always knew t h a t " (Dickens 14). She is a part of the fictional world, so she very

much views the story from her o w n point of view, which is of course highly

subjective, self-diminishing, emotional and sometimes annoyingly naive. Even

though there is, of course, a tendency to believe her observations as she is given

a lot of space, she is an unreliable narrator. Even the city of London that is

assumingly fairly described as a horrid and polluted place s e e m s to Esther partly

great and wonderful: " B y and by w e began to leave the wonderful city,..."

(Dickens 54). T h a t is, of course, also because she tends to see everything rosier

that it is - yet again because she is so grateful for everything and everyone that

c o m e her way. On the other h a n d , her j u d g e m e n t isn't usually w r o n g . "Despite

youth a n d inexperience S u m m e r s o n is notably acute in her j u d g e m e n t s of other

characters; her closes competition in this regard c o m e s from the much older

Jarndyce,..." (Welsh 25). T h e 3 r d

person narrator on the other hand leaves the

impression of a self-confident and sometimes j u d g m e n t a l , all-above observer

w h o is occasionally a little bit more e n g a g e d , but a lot of the time he just reports

41
things. This alternating narrative strategy is key to fully understanding Esther a n d

her traumatic past. If she were to be simply observed and described by the

omniscient narrator, it would be impossible for us to see the restlessness of her

mind, the constant second guessing herself, the fight of her nature with the

image she had accepted as her o w n . W e simply wouldn't get it - there would be

no w a y to see so deeply and profoundly into her troubled world that is in constant

battle with her identity. A confirmation of this proposition is once again provided

by Zwerdling: " T h e psychological subject matter of Dickens's later novels

d e m a n d e d a new narrative technique, in which the character could present

himself directly, rather than being described and interpreted by a n omniscient

narrator. Esther S u m m e r s o n is Dickens's most ambitious attempt to allow a

character w h o does not fully understand herself to tell her o w n story" (432).

T h e use of the first-person narrative voice has a simple purpose of emphasizing

the ever-present psychological pain Esther had suffered from an early age. A n

interesting m o m e n t c o m e s every now a n d then in her narration, w h e n she talks

of herself in the third person: "Addressing him by the n a m e of Guppy, Mr Kenge

inquired whether Miss S u m m e r s o n ' s boxes and the rest of the baggage had been

'sent r o u n d ' " (Dickens 3 1 - 3 2 ) . Of course, it is a marginal thing that the author

could have used only to refine the language, but it feels as it highlights the

situations that she has no control over.

However, Esther isn't the only character of the book that had to deal with parental

neglect, Zwerdling adds: " S h e is the unconscious representative of the many

characters in Bleak House who have not known parental love - Jo, the Jellybys,

the Pardiggles, Guster, Prince Turveydrop, Richard, A d a " (432).

42
All these other characters are v i e w e d from outside and lack the option of

expressing their sufferings in their o w n words. This could be a representation of

all those other silent stories of real people that never c o m e to light, that no one

really ever cares about, even though there are hundreds or maybe thousands of

others that share the s a m e fate and pain as Esther. W e need Esther's voice to

understand the essence of her suffering, but w e also need to see that there are

others that hadn't been given the c h a n c e to be heard. This could be one of the

portrayals of mid-Victorian society that primarily created the circumstances under

which people like Esther couldn't be a c c e p t e d , but at the s a m e time turned its

back on t h e m , pretending they don't even exist.

Esther is confronted with her life-long misery once again towards the end of the

story w h e n she falls ill. This is around the time the fact that she is Lady Dedlock's

child gets e x p o s e d . Her illness and subsequent healing refer to her ultimate

acceptance of her fate and origin. Zwerdling further explains this: " T h e symbolic

connection of these events with Esther's d i s f i g u r e m e n t 4

seems clear. Her

illegitimate birth is no longer a secret. She is made ugly in the eyes of the world.

Her scarred face is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual s i n "

(435). Esther once again remembers her childhood a n d words of Ms. Barbary

saying she is a disgrace, only now she is adult, she had the chance to relive her

childhood in a w a y in the h o m e of Mr. Jarndyce and has to deal once and for all

with her identity.

4
According to Ackroyd, in 1822 Dickens's infant sister, Harriet, died from the smallpox (the
disease which disfigures Esther Summerson) (36).

43
An interesting observation of Esther makes Zwerdling once again. At the end of

the book w h e n Esther finally marries Woodcourt, she moves into a house that

Mr. Jarndyce bought and furnished for the couple in about the s a m e time Richard

Carstone dies. A d a , his wife, then c o m e s to live with Mr. Jarndyce. Esther thinks

of A d a throughout the whole book as of an alter ego of herself - A d a is the girl

she wants to be at the beginning - falling in love with Richard, marrying him,

breaking free of the life she is used to live and exploring possibilities of a romantic

love that she might may be deserving of after all. Here, at the e n d , their roles

c h a n g e , a n d A d a c o m e s to the Bleak House to replace Esther. "Esther's marriage

to W o o d c o u r t is possible only after A d a loses her husband and returns to her

loving guardian, ... only one of t h e m can venture into the world of love and

marriage at a time; the alter ego must stay at h o m e " (438). Alexander Welsh in

his study of A d a Clare in Dickens Redressed: The Art of Bleak House and Hard

Times (2000) expands this idea: " A d a is both double and rival to the heroine: a

sure index of the degree to which the novelist subjectively construes the plot, for

which A d a Clare is otherwise not very interesting. A d a exists o n l y for Esther

S u m m e r s o n , for her projection a n d her narrative" (40).

This e m e r g e s the question of w h e t h e r Esther's " h a p p y e n d i n g " is happy after all.

She still may not be a whole complete person, as she still might dwell on receiving

love in all its forms - she desires to be loved parentally - because Mr. Jarndyce

is essentially a father figure to both A d a and Esther, but also romantically.

As w e leave Esther to her happily married life there is one more aspect of this

happiness that has been on my mind. Of course, Esther deserves to be happy,

44
she has finally broken free of the ghosts of her past and has yet another chance

to start over. But is this happiness a righteous w a y of the world or is it a

c o n s e q u e n c e of a n obedient and dutiful life she has led? As if her new life w a s

e a r n e d by behaving as she should in the eyes of the society which would mean

that it is preferable to bend d o w n to the already established obsolete traditions.

4.2.2 The Essence of Home

Apart from being the symbol of the consequences a traumatic childhood might

have on a person; Esther e m b o d i e s one more aspect of mid-Victorian society.

She creates the essence of h o m e in Bleak House - essence of a Victorian h o m e

that is the d o m a i n of a w o m a n that manages all there is to manage in order to

create a proper a n d comfortable household. Even though she is a middle-class

w o m a n at this point, she wants to work and is eager to.

As soon as she arrives to the Bleak House, she is given a bunch of housekeeping

keys that represent her many household duties. Esther accepts t h e m with

surprise, but immediately recognizes t h e m as a sign of great trust that she has

been honoured with.

Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so attentive to me,

that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, though what with trying to

remember the contents of each little store-room drawer and cupboard; and what

with making notes on a slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles,

and glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally

45
 a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy that I could not

believe it was breakfast time when I heard the bell ring. Away I ran, however, and

made tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the teapot; and

then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take

a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. (Dickens 81)

Esther's efforts concerning the household may be v i e w e d as once again her

attempt to fit into the society that holds certain standards a n d clearly determines

w h a t should a n d shouldn't be done, w h a t is respectable and w h a t isn't, w h a t is

the role of a w o m a n and a m a n .

This finding, of course, isn't ground-breaking as many before c a m e to the s a m e

conclusion. T i m o t h y Petalson for instance also suggests that Esther does to a

certain extent fulfil the Victorian idea of h o m e in Bleak House, w h e r e " s h e quickly

establishes herself as the loving centre of a well-ordered domestic s y s t e m " (674).

However, she does this of course partially as a result of her need to make others

happy with her as well, so she could make up for the unfortunate reality of her

existence. " I often thought of the resolution I had made on my birthday, to try

to be industrious, contented, a n d true-hearted, and to d o s o m e g o o d to someone,

a n d win s o m e love if I could; and indeed, indeed, I felt almost a s h a m e d to have

d o n e so little a n d have w o n so m u c h " (23). She applies herself in a n y way

possible prior to her arrival to the Bleak House. At Greenleaf, she helps with

tutoring the other children and she is also the first one to take care of Peepy, the

dirty child that falls of the stairs w h e n Esther, A d a a n d Richard arrive to the

Jellyby household. She has a w a y of anticipating needs and is a very attentive

46
observer as if she was almost always looking for s o m e o n e that she could help or

something she could procure.

A n d others concur: "Esther seems to have many roles in the novel; she cares for

children, she organizes households, and she provides companionship for various

male figures. All these roles c a n , however, be grouped under one t e r m :

h o u s e k e e p e r " (Danahay 4 1 6 ) .

Even though Esther's work is appreciated to a certain extent, it isn't as important

a n d relevant as the work of other, notably male characters.

Esther's position is shown as subordinate to the prestige of these men. Her labor

is not explicitly recognized as work in the same sense as the tasks performed by

the male professionals [Dr. Woodcourt, lawyer Tulkinghorn, Inspector Bucket].

This lack of acknowledgement of Esther's labor results directly from the growing

separation of women from work in the Victorian period. (Danahay 418)

However foolish this division of roles may seem today Dickens was very much

traditional in this regard and agreed with the idea that w o m e n should stay at

h o m e a n d take care of their families.

In many of Dickens's novels, simultaneously comfortable and disturbing images

of Victorianism, there is the quintessence of home. It is suggested by a young

woman, cheerful and busy, managing an orderly household with housekeeping

keys dangling from her waist, and work basket awaiting any leisure moments.

Home is a place of comfort and refuge, but also of activity and responsibility. It

47
 represents a concentration of effort, good-natured effort, effort that benefits

immeasurably the human beings the home contains. The home is a manageable

unit of living, manageable by a woman; ideally a place from which friction can be

abolished, where standards of behavior and taste can be preserved, into which

vulgarity and ugliness should not intrude. It is an environment that nurtures the

expression of the best human qualities and encourages the most praiseworthy

human activities. This is how Dickens wanted to see home, and on occasions

represented it. (Calder 9)

H o m e was supposed to be a d o m a i n of w o m e n that was, however, controlled by

m e n . A n example of this may be seen in the character of Mrs. Jellyby, a

philanthropist w h o neglects her o w n children a n d household because of her

African project. She is, in a way, a very progressive character that outshines her

o w n husband by her tireless fight to cultivate the coffee berry and help with the

settlement o n the banks of the African rivers. In the novel she c o m e s off as a

villain because she is essentially a proactive, working w o m a n that has forgotten

her place and defies the very principle of femininity that rests upon her treatment

of her o w n household. From the very beginning she is introduced as a cold and

inattentive w o m a n , w h e n she doesn't even notice the fall of Peepy of the stairs.

Mrs Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we could not help

showing in our own faces, as the dear child's head recorded its passage with a

bump on every stair - Richard afterwards said he counted seven, besides one for

the landing - received us with perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very

diminutive, plump woman, of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though

48
 they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if - I am quoting

Richard again - they could see nothing nearer that Africa! (Dickens 33)

She, as well as Lady D e d l o c k a n d Ms Barbary, is a representation of a bad parent.

But not only that. She neglects her children, but apart from being a bad mother,

she is, maybe more importantly, a bad housekeeper. She has no time to tidy the

rooms or to make sure the dinner is properly prepared; nothing runs on time in

the Jellyby house. It is a place of discomfort, without w a r m t h and without the

feeling of h o m e that apparently, only a w o m a n can bring to it. Mrs Jellyby is also

not a typical lady that w o u l d pay attention to her looks, she is "too much occupied

with her African duties to brush [her h a i r ] " (33). She is not noble; she is not

fashionable.

A n d so, even though Mrs Jellyby might be devoting her time to something

potentially meaningful, she c o m e s off as scattered, disordered a n d confused.

In this regard, Esther c h a m p i o n s the Victorian essence of femininity. It is quite

clearly brought up in the novel several times, for e x a m p l e from Ada's mouth:

" Y o u are so thoughtful, Esther,' she said, ' a n d yet so cheerful! A n d y o u do so

m u c h , so unpretendingly! Y o u w o u l d m a k e a h o m e o u t of e v e n this house'"

(Dickens 38). Even though Esther is in a w a y a working girl, her place is within

the house, in the w a r m h o m e , not at all in the outside world of m e n . A comparison

offers itself with another character in the book that o n the other hand fails in his

attempt to succeed in the men's world. Richard is at the beginning of the Bleak

House a y o u n g , ambitious man trying to make a career for himself, deciding w h a t

49
he wants to d o with his life until he finally finds his purpose in the lawsuit of

Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Richards represents a certain irresponsibility and failure

of masculinity in the eyes of the traditional Victorian perception of the man's role.

He b e c o m e s obsessed with the case only to find out that it is a lost one, without

a n y promise of profit at the e n d . T h a t alone is e n o u g h to crush him completely.

Another failure of w h a t is to be expected by the society might be seen in the

character of Lady Dedlock w h o lives her whole life as a prisoner of her past.

Having a lover and a child out of wedlock w a s not that u n c o m m o n even in

Victorian times but resulted in a permanent social stain, if not anything worse.

T h a t is w h y she chooses to live in a lie that slowly but surely takes its toll a n d

eventually results in her d e a t h . " T h e death of the master blackmailer releases

Esther Summerson's mother; so does the general knowledge of her secret release

her; and so will death release her, the death she is headed for in full flight to the

s a m e burial g r o u n d " (Welsh 65). Dickens characterizes Lady Dedlock quite

obviously through her n a m e - " H o n o r i a " as the ironic counterpart of a fallen

w o m a n and " D e d l o c k " as being irreversibly locked in the consequences of her

actions.

T h e Dedlocks's country estate, Chesney W o l d , is naturally a g l o o m y place. But

not only because of " t h e fashionable L a d y " of the house but because of the whole

family that is most likely modelled after s o m e of the powerful clans of the time.

"It is evident to any student of eighteenth-century history that the nation's

political life was then m a n a g e d and dominated by a limited n u m b e r of powerful

a n d titled families, variously inter-related by marriage, notably the Granvilles,

50
Pelhams, Stanhopes, Grenvilles and Wriothesleys. A n d Chapter XII of Bleak

House, which satirizes a gathering of the ruling classes at Chesney W o l d ,

suggests that things have scarcely improved a century o n " (Roberts xxiv).

4.3 Poverty, Pollution and Overpopulation

As previously said, Dickens identified himself with the poor and addressed the

topic to a certain extent in all his novels. He felt quite strongly that poverty w a s

a matter of c o m m o n responsibility and involvement a n d by not avoiding the

t h e m e and incorporating scenes of the ever-present misery, decay, filth, garbage,

disease and smell, he w a n t e d to raise attention to the already quite obvious

problems. Even though poverty existed throughout the entire country, it was

more visible a n d possibly more pressing in the cities. T h e ultimate e x a m p l e was

the capital. " T h e population of London at the beginning of the nineteenth century

was something like one million but, by the e n d , it had reached four and a half

million; in the 1840s alone it has been estimated that there was a net migration

into the city of s o m e quarter of million p e o p l e " (Ackroyd 381). T h e massive

growth of the n u m b e r of people in towns and cities w a s to blame only partially

because the consequences surely could not have been that dire if there w a s

e n o u g h will to reshape the city's m a n a g e m e n t and infrastructure. T h e unsanitary

living conditions of the working class often lead to even more desperate

scenarios, such as increase in alcohol consumption and prostitution. O n e of the

greatest problems of the time was spread of diseases, for which the pollution

created ideal conditions. Peter Ackroyd appropriately explains the term " f e v e r i s h "

51
often used in regard to the nineteenth century as " a statement of medical fact

a n d not a m e t a p h o r " (384). " B e t w e e n N o v e m b e r a n d D e c e m b e r of 1847 500,000

people w e r e infected with typhus fever out of a total population of 2,100,000 (...)

T h e average age of mortality in the capital was 27, while that for the working

classes was 22, and in 1839 almost half the funerals in London were of children

under the age of t e n " (Ackroyd 384). Dickens w a s well a w a r e of these realities

a n d was more than generous in portraying t h e m in his novels.

In Bleak House, there is, of course the wretched life and death of Jo, poor

o r p h a n e d crossing-sweeper that represents surely tens of thousands Victorian

England's children. Filthy, half-starved and without any idea w h a t is going on in

the world as he never had any guidance, he his characterized even through his

language. T h e r e are even parts of the text w h e r e he is not given a c h a n c e to

speak for himself, instead an unmarked direct speech that intensifies his

helplessness is used:

Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two names.

Never heerd of such a think. Don't know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it

long enough for him. He don't find no fault with it. Spell it? No. He can't spell it. No

father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a broom's

a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about the

broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't exactly say what'll be done to him after

he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery

bad to punish him, and serve him right - and so he'll tell the truth. (Dickens 128)

52
Jo is a relatively minor but quite memorable character that ultimately plays a very

important role. He is godless, illiterate, dirty, diseased, has no family, practically

no friends, no prospect of future, no one to show the w a y s of the world, to teach

him anything that he could use to secure himself a better life. From the first

m o m e n t w e encounter him in the story, he is immediately likeable. T h e reader is

w o n over by his pitiable fate and naive and raw honesty. He is in a w a y a chance

character that accidentally connects others in the story and therefore has a key

place in uncovering the plot itself. Jo represents a different world - the ugly side

of Victorian London. He ignores the society the s a m e w a y the society ignores

him. He is passed and overlooked almost by everyone, often not even considered

a h u m a n being: " W e can't take that\u a Court of Justice, g e n t l e m e n " (Dickens

128). As he often reminds us, he „don't know nothink" but in the e n d , it is his

knowledge of N e m o that represents the most sought after mystery of the book.

Even though he is the lowest of the low, he manages to be relevant to the

m e m b e r s of the highest society.

What connection can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in

town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the outlaw with the

broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard-

step? What connexion can there have been between many people in the

innumerable histories of this world who from opposite sides of great gulfs have,

nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! (Dickens 189)

Jo lives in Tom-all-Alone's - a well-known slum, hotbed of diseases, a place of

foul smell and wretched people living in even more wretched conditions. Dickens,

53
however, doesn't treat it as a place, under his pen, Tom-all-Alone's b e c o m e s alive

as if it were a person, as it always " h a s its revenge". It could be by extension

considered one of the main characters of the novel. It's covered in fog, m u d ,

infected with smallpox and typhus, it is feared and avoided as something

contagious and fatal. As Slater explains its metaphorical significance: n

Bleak

House's unifying t h e m e is that of infection, both physical and moral. T h e

putrescence of Tom-all-Alone's infects other, very different, places, reaching even

as far as Mr Jarndyce's pleasant rural home, while the malign rigmarole of

Chancery infects its suitors with mania and m a d n e s s " (340). T h e famous "east

w i n d " that Mr Jarndyce always feels could be perceived as a reference to T o m as

"it w a s c o m m o n l y believed that the pestiferous winds and gases from the

rookeries were literally the bearers of f a t a l i t y " ( A c k r o y d 383). In the Bleak House,

the east w i n d is associated with something unpleasant, disturbing or potentially

dangerous. Also, as Roberts remarks, Dickens didn't use much of his symbols

haphazardly:

Dickens followed the contemporary medical debate on whether epidemic diseases

were air-borne or water-borne - he does not commit himself in Bleak House - and

he began a series of public speeches on sanitary reform: in particular, his addresses

to the Metropolitan Sanitary Association in February 1850 and May 1851. In the first

of these, he said that sanitary reform must precede all other remedies, including

education and religion, and in the second, he anticipated Bleak House with his

warning that 'the air from Gin Lane will be carried by an easterly wind into May

Fair',... (xxx)

54
Moreover, " T o m - a l l - A l o n e ' s " as well as " T h e East W i n d " were originally one of the

possibilities for the title of the n o v e l . By the final choice, Dickens hints that the
5

Bleak House of the book isn't in fact the h o m e of Mr Jarndyce (as it is described

as the actual opposite - a safe, cosy a n d w a r m shelter) or any other mentioned

place, but the state of society itself. " T h e society of Victorian England, t h e n , is

the bleak house which Dickens is intent on describing; a n d he builds his

description with a series of physically a n d spiritually desolate houses, presenting

Chesney W o l d as the crumbling fortress of the aristocracy, Tom-all-Alone's as the

t e n e m e n t for the poor, a n d interspersing in between the houses of other

m e m b e r s of that society which represent its m a n y w r o n g s " (van Burren Kelley

254). Tom-all-Alone's is described quite naturalistically as it should be the life-

like portrayal of the conditions of the Victorian poorest. A periodic report on the

state of England provides most famously Engels:

If he [a poor man] is so happy as to find work, i.e., if the bourgeoisie does him

the favour to enrich itself by means of him, wages await him which scarcely

suffice to keep body and soul together; if he can get no work he may steal, if he

is not afraid of the police, or starve, in which case the police will take care that

he does so in a quiet and inoffensive manner. During my residence in England,

at least twenty of thirty persons have died of simple starvation under the most

5
„Dickens began in 1851 by trying out somewhat different titles, on slips of paper that are
preserved with the manuscript of Bleak House now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The slip
bound uppermost with the manuscript proposes two titles only: Tom-all-Alone's' and, beneath it,
The Ruined House.' Tom-all-Alone's' persists in the first position through nine slips, while
changes are rung on the house, as either 'Ruined' or 'Solitary.' On the second slip, beneath the
other titles appear 'Bleak House Academy' and 'The East Wind'" (Welsh 2).

55
 revolting circumstances, and a jury has rarely been found possessed of the

courage to speak the plain truth in the matter. (25)

This description brings us once again back to Jo, w h o s e death is probably of the

most tragic m o m e n t s of the novel. It is a direct accusation of the society's

ignorance, as the last paragraph of the chapter he passes in reads: " D e a d , your

Majesty. Dead, my lords and g e n t l e m e n . D e a d , Right Reverends and W r o n g

Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly

c o m p a s s i o n in your hearts. A n d dying thus a r o u n d us every d a y " (Dickens 551).

In the world divided by classes, politics, prejudice and apathy there is still an

emphasis on " u s " that should a w a k e n our conscience. But is there a n y c o m m o n

conscience, is there any c o m m o n humanity to talk about? T h e problems of

Victorian England were debated on many levels at the time - " d e b a t e s about the

environmental a n d hygienic problems of the London slums, and their link to wider

forms of social unrest (incl. crime), about w h o is ultimately responsible for such

p r o b l e m s " (Joyce 139) etc. - and as w e have noted before, Dickens was a n active

contributor to these. T h e c h a n g e that needed to be immediate, did, however,

take longer than he saw necessary.

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 5. Conclusion

It is safe to say that Dickens was a n author of realistic fiction. He had a journalistic

need to notice and address the contemporary state of the world and the artistic

skill to capture it in a w a y that even the poorest people had a chance to

understand it.

T h e first chapter of the thesis summarizes the time of abrupt changes that

Dickens c o m m e n t e d on a n d on which he had based his literary works.

T h e second attempts to recreate the state of the period novel that was shaped

by m a n y other great authors, such as Charlotte Bronte, A n t h o n y Trollope, George

Elliot, William Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell or T h o m a s Hardy. T o a certain extent,

all these giants of Victorian literature had similarly to Dickens addressed political

a n d religious matters, they have e x p a n d e d on the, then more than relevant,

search for one's identity and much more.

T h e analysis of the Bleak House itself c o m e s as a last part of the thesis. T h e main

t h e m e s cover the criticism of the legal system that was self-satisfying instead of

serving the people, the absurdity of the standards that were still deeply

entrenched in the society and its expectations a n d there is, of course, a n

emphasis o n the matter of poverty and ever-present pollution that was typical

for Victorian times, direst especially in the cities.

57
6. Works Cited

Primary s o u r c e s

Carlyle, T h o m a s . Chartism. Belford, Clarke, 1890.

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Wordsworth Classics, 2 0 0 1 .

Disraeli, Benjamin. Sibyl. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. George

Allen a n d Unwin LTD, 1892.

Secondary sources

A c k r o y d , Peter. Dickens. Vintage Books, 2002.

Brimley, George. Dickens's Bleak House. Spectator. 24 Sep. 1853, pp. 1 5 - 1 7 .

Brown, Prewitt Julia. "Class a n d M o n e y . " The Victorian Novel, edited by Harold

Bloom, Chelsea House, 2004, pp. 6 9 - 8 9 .

Calder, J e n n i . The Victorian Home. London: B.T. Batsford, 1977.

Danahay, Martin A. " H o u s e k e e p i n g a n d H e g e m o n y in ,Bleak House.'" Studies in

the Novel, vol. 23, no. 4, 1991, pp. 4 1 6 - 4 3 1 . JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/29532815. A c c e s s e d 13 D e c e m b e r 2019.

Deirdre, David. The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian novel. Cambridge

University Press, 2 0 0 1 .

58
Dennis, Barbara. The Victorian Novel. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Eliot, S i m o n . " T h e business of Victorian publishing." The Cambridge Companion

to the Victorian Novel, edited by David Deirdre, Cambridge University Press,

2 0 0 1 , pp. 3 7 - 6 0 .

Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. The English Novel in History, 1840-1895. London:

Routledge, 1997.

Joyce, S i m o n . "Inspector Bucket versus Tom-AII-Alone's: 'Bleak House', Literary

Theory, and the Condition-of-England in the 1 8 5 0 s . " Dickens Studies Annual, v o l .
32, 2002, pp. 1 2 9 - 1 4 9 . JSTOR, www.istor.org/stable/44372054. A c c e s s e d 27
July 2020.

Marsh, Nicholas. Charles Dickens: Hard Times/Bleak House. Palgrave, 2 0 1 5 .

Mitchell, Sally. Day Life in Victorian England. G r e e n w o o d Press, 2009.

Page, N o r m a n . A Dickens Companion. New York: Schocken Books, 1987.

Peltason, Timothy. "Esther's W i l l . " ELH, vol. 59, no. 3, 1992, pp. 6 7 1 -

6 9 1 . JSTOR, www.istor.org/stable/2873447. A c c e s s e d 27 November 2019.

Roberts, Doreen. " T h e Historical Context and Setting of Bleak House". Bleak

House, by Charles Dickens, W o o d s w o r t h Classics, 2 0 0 1 , pp. x x i i i - x x x i .

Shires, Linda M. " T h e aesthetics of the Victorian novel: f o r m , subjectivity,

ideology." The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, edited by David

Deirdre, Cambridge University Press, 2 0 0 1 , pp. 6 1 - 7 6 .

Slater, Michael. "Writing Bleak House,: 1852-1853 ."Charles Dickens, Yale

University Press, 2009, pp. 3 4 0 - 3 6 2 . JSTOR, w w w . i s t o r . o r g / s t a b l e / i . c t t l n i k i f . 2 2 .
Accessed 29 July 2020.

Tillotson, Geoffrey. A view of Victorian literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

59
v a n Buren Kelley, Alice. " T h e Bleak Houses of Bleak H o u s e . " Nineteenth-Century
Fiction, vol. 25, no. 3, 1970, pp. 253-268. JSTOR,
www.istor.ora/stable/2933433. Accessed 27 July 2020.

W e i s b u c h , Robert. „Dickens, Melville, and the tale of two countries." The

Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, edited by David Deirdre,

Cambridge University Press, 2 0 0 1 , pp. 2 3 4 - 2 5 4 .

W e l s h , Alexander. " B l e a k House and Dickens." Dickens Redressed: The Art of

Bleak House and Hard Times, Yale University Press, 2000, pp. 1-19. JSTOR,
www.istor.org/stable/i.ctt32baiv.5. A c c e s s e d 27 July 2020.

Wheeler, Michael. „Mid-Century Fiction: A Victorian Identity: Social-Problem,

Religious and Historical Novels." The Victorian Novel, edited by Harold Bloom,

Chelsea House, 2004, pp. 5 3 - 6 7 .

Zwerdling, Alex. "Esther S u m m e r s o n Rehabilitated." PMLA, vol. 88, no. 3, 1973,

pp. 4 2 9 - 4 3 9 . JSTOR, www.istor.ora/stable/461523. Accessed 13 December

2019.

60
 7. Resume
7.1 English Resume
T h e thesis deals with the depiction of various aspects of life in Victorian

England in the middle of the 19th century in the novel Bleak House (1853) by

Charles Dickens.

T h e first chapter presents an overview of the abrupt c h a n g e s that occurred in

the society of the 19th century, mainly due to the Industrial Revolution and its

immediate effects on the w a y of life. It presents a chronological timeline of the

most important events of this period, with regard to the direct c o n s e q u e n c e s for

the literature and the publishing industry.

T h e second chapter deals in more detail with the position of the period novel

a n d its function. It concerns itself with the most important tendencies resulting

in the popularity of the political a n d social novel, the t h e m e of the search for

one's o w n identity, the contradiction between the old a n d the new order a n d the

influence of religion.

T h e third chapter then moves freely to the analysis of the Bleak House itself,

focusing on a reflection of the Victorian legal system and its significant

shortcomings, social differences and the alarming living conditions of the poorest,

a n d entrenched social values. In particular, the position of men and w o m e n and

their expected a n d socially acceptable role. It assesses both the chosen t h e m e

a n d space-time of the novel, as well as selected stylistic m e a n s of significance.

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7.2 Czech Resumé

Diplomová práce se zabývá zobrazením různých aspektů života ve viktoriánské

Anglii v polovině 19. století v románu Charlese Dickense Bleak House (1853).

První kapitola je v ě n o v á n a přiblížení z m ě n , které ve společnosti 19. století

nastaly zejména vlivem průmyslové revoluce a jejími bezprostředními d o p a d y na

způsob života. Předkládá chronologicky sestavenou časovou osu nejdůležitějších

událostí tohoto období, s ohledem na přímé důsledky pro literaturu a

nakladatelský průmysl.

Druhá kapitola se blíže věnuje postavení d o b o v é h o r o m á n u a j e h o funkci.

Rozebírá nejdůležitější tendence směřující k politickému a sociálně agitačnímu

r o m á n u , tematice hledání vlastní identity, rozporu mezi starým a n o v ý m řádem a

vlivem náboženství.

Třetí kapitola pak volně přechází k samotné analýze románu Bleak House se

zaměřením na reflexi viktoriánského právního systému a jeho značných

nedostatků, sociálních rozdílů a alarmujícího stavu životních podmínek

nejchudších obyvatel, a zakořeněných společenských hodnot. Zvláště jde

postavení muže a ženy, jejich úkol a o č e k á v a n o u a společensky přijatelnou roli.

Posuzuje přitom j a k zvolenou tematiku a časoprostor r o m á n u , tak v y b r a n é

stylistické prostředky nesoucí v ý z n a m .

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