In Dickens's novels settings can be as important as characters. One might go even further and say that sometimes settings are characters, inasmuch as they become dramatic agents in his stories. Houses and furniture in Dickens often have a life and personality of their own. They help to stimulate the movement of the story, or they reflect the mood of the human action, or they are extensions of the characters involved in particular actions.
Settings collaborate very energetically with the human story.
Dickens is famous for his attention to the particulars of dress, facial details, tiny nuances of manner in his characters. The reader can infer details of personality from the wealth and precision of physical details which he supplies. A person's clothes, for instance, are expressions of his or her inner self. Dickens takes infinite pains in dressing his characters precisely so that the reader has both a vivid senseof the character's physical presence and a feel for the personality. A person 'wears' his home much as he wears his clothes.