Classics Corner: Bleak House by Charles Dickens; Dickens's Best Work is a Savage Satire of Victorian England and Legal System
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: In winter, I often turn to the works of one author, the one whose name is ubiquitous to the season. When the days are at their coldest and charities are promoted to help the less fortunate. When there is a sense of joy of the season, but melancholy at the passage of one year to another.
When one work is quoted, filmed, parodied, mocked, analyzed, remade, rebooted, and rewritten over just about any other. Of course that work is A Christmas Carol and that author is Charles Dickens.
However, many of Dickens's works also carry the same dark description, social conscience, and memorable characters that noted Christmas story has. My favorite of his works is his savage satire Bleak House, which is an amusing, mocking, heartfelt and heartbreaking attack on the English legal system and the values held in Victorian London.
It is the fiftieth year involving the lawsuit of Jarndyce Vs. Jarndyce, a case that is about as omnipresent in London society as the “particular,” the fog that rolls in and out. Jarndyce V. Jarndyce is a case that involves an inheritance but has dragged out in court for a long long long time. Many heirs were declared but none walked away with the loot.
Dickens's narration tells us that many marriages, births, and employments were made based on the promise that when they won the Jarndyce inheritance things will be better. “The child who was promised a rocking-horse with the money inherited has now grown into a man's state and has pursued other interests,” Dickens tells us.
No one can even say what the case is about, except most of the presumed heirs have all grown old, feeble, insane, and have watched their fortunes and hopes dry up through the many years of litigation and waiting.
One of those former presumed heirs is John Jarndyce, who wisely stays out of the whole mess, particularly since his uncle killed himself over the stress of the long case. Instead John spends his time at his house, Bleak House, which he opens to the two latest young victims-uh I mean heirs: Ada Clare and Richard Carstone.
Jarndyce also welcomes another newcomer to his home: Esther Summerson who while not involved in the case, has her own troubles. She was an orphan raised by an abusive aunt who informed her that she was her unknown mother's disgrace and that her mother's was hers. Esther doesn't know anything about her parents, but wants to find out about them.
Meanwhile, we also peer into the fashionable home of Sir Leicester and Lady Deadlock. Lady Deadlock appears to be contented with her lot in life as the wife of an English peer many decades her senior, but she is hiding secrets. These secrets are first learned when she accidentally sees some legal briefs written by a familiar hand. Lady Deadlock investigates the source of that handwriting. After she learns about the writer’s sad fate, she becomes determined to keep her secrets hidden from disreputable sources.
Most of the attention to Dickens's writing is paid to his focus on poverty and hardship and criticisms of poor social conditions. That attention is certainly found here. But what many don't realize, partly because of the dark conditions of the characters and how verbose and at times heavy the writing can be, is that Dickens can be funny. In fact, Dickens often satirized the English society that put people in these horrible conditions. When you think about it, Dickens could stand alongside Mark Twain as one of the 19th century's foremost satirists.
Take Bleak House for example. The institution that took the most beating from Dickens's pen is Chancery Court,similar to civil court which manages lawsuits, inheritances, property disputes, and other issues. Reportedly, Bleak House was based on Dickens's experiences working as a court reporter covering the various cases which seemed to drag on forever as well as his own involvement in Chancery Court where he was involved in a suit concerning A Christmas Carol. Dickens won the suit, but he ended up paying for it more than if he lost.
With Bleak House, the facts that the suit has gone on for over fifty years and that no one knows anything about the case are points for satire in and of itself. Even the litigants’ name, Jarndyce, is similar to the word jaundice, as in sick, as in people are sick of hearing about it.
There is a great moment where Richard Carstone begins working as a law clerk for the firm, Kenge & Carboy. (After a poor turn studying medicine and before an equally bad turn preparing for the Army.) He spends most of the time studying the case files of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce and since he can't half understand them, he ultimately decides that the law “is not the boy for (him) after all.” This shows that even the people who are most prominent in JvJ can't possibly understand it and if they can't, it's no wonder that the average English person thinks very little of it.
The Chancery Court seems almost like a gateway to Hell. It is made up of solicitors, like Vholes who takes advantage of Richard's naivete and Tulkinghorn who learns Lady Deadlock's secrets and certainly isn't above using blackmail to overpower her. There are also shady law clerks, like Tony Weevle who does most of the legwork when it comes to finding out dirty dealings and William Guppy who harbors a stalkerish crush on Esther Summerson but is smart enough to gather clues based on mere observation. There are also law writers like Nemo, a former soldier turned drug addict who dies early in the book in extreme poverty, but whose presence is filled throughout the remainder of the novel. (Interesting to note: Dickens used Nemo, the Latin term for no one, for a character name 17 years before Jules Verne would use it for his vengeance seeking Captain in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.)
The Chancery Court is full of schemers who don't mind taking the various Jarndyce litigants for a ride, so it is no wonder that many fall under the spell of obtaining easy money. Richard is the latest example. The main reason that he can't focus and settle on a career is because he has the case hanging over his head. Like others before him, he becomes obsessed with the case and cuts himself off from his only family in John, Ada, and Esther and spends all his time at Chancery Court and with solicitors like Vholes who bleed him dry. He is like that person who goes every other day to the convenience store to buy lottery tickets, because any day now he hopes that he will be the winner. As for the reality of finding work, well screw that, there's money to win!
Ada is a more passive participant but is drawn in like Richard. Richard and she fall in love and become a couple, but her support does very little to stop his obsession. In fact, it increases it because he uses their love as an excuse by saying that he is looking after Ada's interests as well.
It's apparent that Richard and Ada could turn out like the others who are swept up in the Chancery Court nonsense. People like Gridley, a Shropshire farmer who keeps calling for the Lord Chancellor demanding to be heard, and Miss Flite, a woman who has gone insane from the waiting to the point that she keeps birds in cages that she vows she will only release them on “the day of judgment.” (i.e. when the case is finally over.) While not JvJ-affiliated, Lord Dedlock also has his own lawsuit going on against his former friend and neighbor, Boythorn, over a piece of property connecting their lands. Their legal donnybrook has gone on for so long that the duo don't know how to live without it. In the final chapter when Boythorn offers to drop the suit, Dedlock threatens him to continue. By this point, the property suit is such a huge point of their lives, that they enjoy fighting over it more than their old friendship.
That's how Chancery Court is to these people, a place where friends and family are broken up all in the name of money. It's no wonder that Dickens's satire is at its most biting here. The results of the suit are also fitting as various characters learn that it was all for nothing because the inheritance was swallowed up by court costs. It is the kind of situational irony that comes with a gut punch but becomes more evident the longer that one thinks about it.
While Chancery Court takes a much deserved razzing from Dickens, other institutions and characters are mocked as well in Bleak House. In his usual gift for writing characters, Dickens give us many eccentric supporting figures with odd names, weird occupations, and bizarre behaviors, personalities and characteristics.
I always said that Dickens is the only writer that I know who could create a character called Lady Dedlock and expect to be taken seriously as an author. She is a woman who appears to be at the height of fashion and society, but she is dead inside, “bored to death” as she says. The only time that she ever seems alive is when she remembers her past with a man that she once loved and the child that she believes died.
Besides her, we have Krook, a bottle shop owner who lives up to his last name and comes to a famous end as a victim of spontaneous combustion. (A real-life phenomena in which someone instantly bursts into flames with no probable cause. At the time of Dickens's writing, it was believed that alcohol was the cause.)
Bucket, a private detective is good at his job but is also interested in obtaining the ear of powerful individuals. There is also Smallweed, an avaricious invalid who is just as investigative as Bucket and just as nasty and greedy as Tulkinghorn.
Mr. Turveydrop is the owner of a dance academy but has no experience in dancing. He leaves that to his overworked but loyal son, Prince. However, he is known for his deportment, which as far as I can tell amounts to very little except prancing around, acting in an affected pretentious manner, and sponging off of the son who does all the work but gets none of the glory.
Harold Skimpole is a middle-aged man who constantly says that he “is like a child.” He uses this excuse to avoid working to pay off his debts and fathering but not actually caring for his various illegitimate children.
Rev. Chadband and his wife are hardly a saintly religious couple. They instead spend their time paying lip service to God's love while profiting off of the human suffering.
Another seeming do-gooder is Mrs. Jellyby who is what Dickens calls “a telescopic philanthropist.” She is so busy participating in welfare organizations that strive to end suffering in far away countries that she ignores the suffering in her own home. Her house is a mess and her children run wild. Her oldest daughter, Caddy, is fed up with the situation particularly having to act as secretary or “pen and ink” to her barely literate mother.
One of the funniest bits is what I call the Coodle-Doodle paragraphs in which Dickens describe various members of the Houses of Parliament and Lords with names like “Lord Coodle,” “Sir Doodle,” etc. all the way down to Zoodle. Besides being the funniest named group this side of Dr. Seuss, these sections serve another purpose. The repetition of names suggest that these men are interchangeable, one can easily replace or be replaced by another. They are also constantly bickering with each other rather than accomplishing anything useful, so nothing ever gets done and the English people never get the proper care and reform that they need. The Coodle-Doodles are a larger variation of the people in Chancery Court, arguing about various issues and scheming against others while their victims sit and wait for help and for a resolution that never comes.
Bleak House, like any good Dickens novel, also carries a lot of heart. Some of the saddest passages concern Jo, a young chimney sweep. Jo is an orphan, born and raised in poverty and unused to basic human kindness or compassion. He is often used by other characters to spy on people or report on doings for a few schillings. He is frequently abused and mistreated by people around him. Jo, and people like him, are the end results of all of the negligence of the people on top like the Chancery staff, the Harold Skimpoles, the Rev. Chadbands, the Mrs. Jellybys, and the Coodle-Doodles.
However, Jo shows that he is a better person than they are. He shows genuine concern for others. He is the only one who is truly grief stricken after Nemo's death because the law writer was one of the few people who was good to him. One of the most touching moments occurs when Jo, lying ill, is cared for by Dr. Alan Woodcourt, a kindly doctor, and contemplates the next world hoping that it will be better than this one.
There is also warmth and tenderness in the home of John Jarndyce. John himself is a genuinely good man who while has the spectre of JvJ hanging around, refuses to let that keep him from being a decent human being. He opens his home to Richard, Ada, and Esther becoming a father figure to the young heirs. He warns Richard not to expect too much from the infamous suit and worries when his sound advice goes in one ear and out the other.
He is also good to people outside his family circle. He is endlessly patient with Skimpole while warning Richard and Esther not to give him money. He hires Charley, a young girl, to serve as Esther's maid when he learns that the girl is the sole provider of her young siblings. He also temporarily houses Jo when the young chimney sweep becomes ill.
One aspect of Jarndyce’s character might seem a bit disconcerting to modern Readers. That is his romantic love for Esther. It might be considered, predatory even pedophilic to some. (even borderline incestuous since she lived with him almost a full year before he confessed his love for her.). However, it almost squeaks by when the Reader is aware that Esther is over 18, a great age difference but at least a legal one, and he never tries to physically press his advantage. Plus, he thinks of Esther as the mother figure in their household with himself as the father. Thankfully, John generously steps aside for a more age-appropriate suitor, Dr. Woodcourt.
Esther herself is also one of the hearts in the novel, Bleak House, perhaps the true heart. She is seen as the domestic goddess/angel in the household that is favored in many of Dickens's other works. Women like Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield, Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities, Rose Maylie in Oliver Twist, and Little Nell Trent in the Old Curiosity Shop. While some of Esther's first person narration is rather cloying, she comes across as a woman who is loving but lost in trying to find a real home to belong to.
In John's home of Bleak House, she takes on the role of housekeeper, female head of the household, and mother figure to all around her. The others call her names like “Old Mother Hubbard,” “Dame Durden,” and “Mother Shipton.” John compares her to the woman in the Mother Goose nursery rhyme “who sweeps the cobwebs from the sky.” She becomes the central figure in the household and indeed of the whole novel.
Like John, Esther shows genuine compassion for those around her like Richard, Ada, Jo, Charley, and the Jellyby family.
However, unlike many of Charles’s other Angels, Esther is a woman in search of her own story rather than serving as a device to prop up someone else's. She is in search of her origins and longs to know why she was considered a disgrace to her mother.
Her search leads her to discover the truth and her reunion with her birth mother is filled with anguish and regret between them. When Esther realizes that she could never be publicly acknowledged by her mother, it is a true moment of heartbreak in her.
However, by the end, Esther realizes that her journey to Bleak House gave her the home that she wanted all along. She finally finds her true home, family, and the end of her previously unfinished story.
Of all of his works, Bleak House is a true testament of Dickens's writing at its best. It makes the Reader laugh, cry, think, act, and above all delight in the journey that it takes them on.
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