SparkNotes: Bleak House: Character List Character List Plot Overview Analysis of Major Characters Esther Summerson - The narrator and protagonist. Esther, an orphan, becomes the housekeeper at Bleak House when she, Ada, and Richard are taken in by Mr. Jarndyce. Everyone loves Esther, who is selfless and nurturing, and she becomes the confidante of several young women. Although she eventually does find her mother, circumstances prevent them from developing a relationship. At first a hesitant, insecure narrator, Esther’s confidence in her storytelling grows, and she controls the narrative skillfully. Read an in-depth analysis of Esther Summerson. Mr. John Jarndyce - Esther’s guardian and master of Bleak House. Mr. Jarndyce becomes the guardian of the orphans Ada and Richard and takes Esther in as a companion for Ada. Generous but uncomfortable with others’ gratitude, Mr. Jarndyce provides a warm, happy home for the three young people. When Esther is an adult, he proposes marriage, but he eventually rescinds his offer when he realizes she’s in love with someone else. Mr.

Jarndyce has sworn off any involvement whatsoever with the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Ada Clare - A ward of Jarndyce. Kind, sweet, and naïve, Ada becomes Esther’s closest confidante and greatest source of happiness. She falls in love with Richard, and although they eventually marry and have a baby, she never finds full happiness with him because of his obsession with the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Richard Carstone - A ward of Jarndyce. Affable but lazy, Richard can’t decide on a career and seems to have no passion for a particular field. Eventually, he becomes obsessed with Jarndyce and Jarndyce and ultimately sacrifices his life for the lawsuit. He pursues the suit for Ada’s sake but never succeeds in providing a real home for her. Lady Dedlock - Mistress of Chesney Wold, married to Sir Leicester, and Esther’s mother. Lady Dedlock, revered and wealthy, has kept the secret of her illegitimate child throughout her life, believing the child died at birth. She reveals her true identity to Esther but is wary of pursuing a relationship because she believes Sir Leicester’s reputation will suffer.

When the truth threatens to come out, she runs away, certain that Sir Leicester will hate her. She dies outside of a cemetery. Read an in-depth analysis of Lady Dedlock. Sir Leicester Dedlock - Master of Chesney Wold. Sir Leicester is a strong, respected man who ultimately withers and weakens because of Lady Dedlock’s disappearance. Fully willing to forgive her, Sir Leicester does his best to find her, but he is too late. Mr. Tulkinghorn - A lawyer involved in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Mr. Tulkinghorn shares Lady Dedlock’s secret and threatens to reveal it. He is eventually murdered by Lady Dedlock’s former maid, Mademoiselle Hortense. Mrs. Baytham Badger - A woman who talks incessantly about her former husbands. Mr. Badger - A doctor who agrees to take Richard on as an apprentice. Mr. Matthew Bagnet - A soldier who owns a musical instrument shop. Mr. Bagnet incurred debts to help George Rouncewell. Mrs. Bagnet - A woman who does all the talking for her husband. Inspector Bucket - A detective hired by Tulkinghorn to investigate Lady Dedlock’s past.

Bucket eventually winds up investigating Tulkinghorn’s murder and arrests Mademoiselle Hortense for the crime. His wife helps him with his detective work. Mr. Lawrence Boythorn - Mr. Jarndyce’s friend who is given to hyperbole. Mr. Boythorn feuds with Sir Leicester about trespassing. He was once in love with Lady Dedlock’s sister, Miss Barbary, who left him when she decided to secretly look after Lady Dedlock’s illegitimate child, Esther. Mr. Chadband - A pompous preacher who takes any opportunity to orate. Mrs. Rachael Chadband - Esther’s former caretaker. Volumnia Dedlock - Sir Leicester’s cousin. Miss Flite - An insane elderly woman who lives above Krook’s shop. Mr. Gridley - A man who gave up his life for the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Mr. William Guppy - A clerk at Kenge and Carboy. Mr. Guppy proposes to Esther, but she refuses him. He investigates her parentage with the hope of changing her mind and reveals to Lady Dedlock that Esther is her daughter. Guster - The Snagsbys’ maid, given to having fits.

Captain Hawdon (Nemo) - Krook’s dead lodger. Hawdon is Lady Dedlock’s former lover and Esther’s father. Mademoiselle Hortense - Lady Dedlock’s French maid. Mademoiselle Hortense is jealous of Lady Dedlock’s attention to young Rosa. She kills Tulkinghorn and frames Lady Dedlock. Mrs. Jellyby - A blustery woman who is obsessed with her “mission,” Borrioboola-Gha in Africa. She neglects her family entirely. Mr. Jellyby - The defeated husband of Mrs. Jellyby. Caroline (Caddy) Jellyby - Mrs. Jellyby’s put-upon daughter and a friend of Esther’s. Jenny - The wife of an abusive brickmaker. Jo - A street urchin who helps Lady Dedlock find Captain Hawdon’s grave. Mr. Tony Jobling (Mr. Weevle) - A friend of Mr. Guppy’s, who takes Captain Hawdon’s old room. Mr. Krook - Owner of the rag-and-bottle shop. Mr. Krook collects documents even though he can’t read. He dies by spontaneous combustion.

Liz - The wife of an abusive brickmaker. Charlotte (Charley) Neckett - The oldest of three orphaned siblings. Charley becomes Esther’s beloved maid. Mrs. Pardiggle - An obnoxious do-gooder who forces her sons to give their money to her charities. Rosa - Lady Dedlock’s protégée, who is in love with Watt Rouncewell. Mr. George Rouncewell - Mrs. Rouncewell’s wayward son and a soldier. He runs a shooting gallery. Mr. Rouncewell - An ironmaker who is George’s brother. Mrs. Rouncewell - The loyal housekeeper at Chesney Wold. Mr. Watt Rouncewell - Mrs. Rouncewell’s grandson, who wants to marry Rosa. Harold Skimpole - A friend of Mr. Jarndyce, who calls himself a “child” and claims to have no idea about time or money. Mr. Skimpole borrows money liberally with no thought of repaying it. He eventually betrays Mr. Jarndyce by telling Inspector Bucket that Jo is in the stable at Bleak House. Bartholomew (Chick) Smallweed - Grandfather Smallweed’s grandson.

Judy Smallweed - The granddaughter who accompanies her chair-bound grandfather everywhere. Grandfather Smallweed - A shrill old man who can barely sit upright in his chair. Grandfather Smallweed threatens and wheedles other people to get his own way. He lends George money. Grandmother Smallweed - The put-upon wife of Grandfather Smallweed. Mr. Snagsby - A law-stationer. Mr. Snagsby gets inadvertently caught up in everyone else’s secrets, although he pays Jo not to tell anyone a secret of his own. He sneaks around to avoid his wife’s prying eyes. Mrs. Snagsby - Mr. Snagsby’s suspicious wife, given to drawing inaccurate conclusions from her eavesdropping and spying. Phil Squod - A crippled lodger at George’s Shooting Gallery. Mr. Turveydrop - A man proud of his deportment. Prince Turveydrop - The young dancing teacher who marries Caddy Jellyby. Mr. Vholes - The sneaky, immoral lawyer determined to get as much money as possible out of Richard’s involvement with the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Allan Woodcourt - A doctor and friend of Mr. Jarndyce. Mr.

Woodcourt marries Esther, and they live together in the new Bleak House. Mrs. Woodcourt - Allan Woodcourt’s mother, who stays at Bleak House to observe Esther’s steadfast commitment to Mr. Jarndyce. Esther Summerson in Bleak House NEXT Character Analysis A young woman raised by a strict and horrible aunt, Esther narrates her own half of the novel, chronicling how she becomes Ada's governess and the housekeeper of Bleak House, befriends and helps many people in the process, and eventually uncovers the mystery of her birth. House Angel Dickens almost has a patent out on Esther's character type. To put it briefly, she is perfect. No, scratch that – she is the perfect young woman, in all the ways that mattered to our stodgy, prim Victorian ancestors. There's almost a standard list of requirements we can run down to make sure: Looks: Pretty, but not overwhelmingly so? Check. Not too vain to get over some facial scarring? Check. So far so good. Personality: Humble, modest, quiet, hard-working, and grateful? Yes, indeedy. A good caretaker, and homemaker who generally tends to act only for the benefit of others?

Every time. Excellent, excellent. Sex: Represses her own desires? Yes, always. Hard for others to see her as a sexual being? Very much so. OK, then – we've got ourselves a very nice version of the "Angel in the House." That phrase comes from a sappy poem written in 1854 by Coventry Patmore about his wife Emily, summing up the awesome way she rolls, wife-style. The poem wasn't a big hit, but the phrase definitely stuck as a neat shorthand for what makes a "good" woman. She's got to stay in the house doing domestic things (so no pesky jobs, voting, or property ownership for you, ladies!). And she's got to be a ministering angel, constantly taking care of everyone around her (family, friends, random neighborhood poor people), without spending much time taking care of herself (no days off now! and stop looking at yourself in the mirror! well, unless it's just to make yourself attractive for your husband). You know, no big deal. In real, life of course, it was probably pretty hard to find anyone who actually fit this mold. But apparently every man could dream.

And a man like Dickens could dream and write it down. The Modest Narrator Still, this Angel in the House is different in one important way from Dickens's other angels, like Amy in Little Dorrit, Biddy in Great Expectations, Sissy Jupe in Hard Times , or Lizzie Hexam in Our Mutual Friend. She actually gets to speak in her own voice and tell her own story. So what happens when a shy, modest, and self-abnegating character tries to be a narrator – someone who has to speak to others, talk about herself, and describe things with relative honesty? For one thing, because we are getting a lot of the narrating character's thoughts, Esther constantly has to analyze the people she sees, the events she experiences, and her own emotions. All this analysis leads to growth that can actually be demonstrated rather than described. So for instance, at first Esther has only very mild concern about Harold Skimpole, but as she gets older and more self-assured, she goes and actually tells him off. We, in turn, know that she has changed as a person because we see her going to give him what for rather than simply hearing about it from a third-person narrator.

Another way to see growth is in the way Esther becomes more and more willing to be critical about what she sees. So while she describes Mrs. Jellyby in the nicest way possible and tries to find the good in that crazy woman with her philanthropic nonsense, later in the novel she is totally straight with us about Mr. Turveydrop and his selfish, ludicrous existence. She even gets kind of nasty in her (always internal) put-downs. See if you can spot a few toward the end of the novel. All that modesty and self-denial has a narrative drawback, which is easy to see whenever Esther has to describe the way other people think about her. Since she is so perfect, most people are totally bowled over by her, think of her extremely highly, and generally want to be super nice and complimentary to her. But a person who doesn't advertise her own awesomeness would never broadcast this kind of thing. So Dickens solves this problem by having Esther repeat the nice things other people say but then immediately downplay them herself. It's kind of an imperfect solution – every time she does this, she sounds like she's just fishing for compliments. Character List Character List Mr.

Bayham Badger A London physician who provides training for Richard Carstone. Mrs. Bayham Badger His wife, who constantly talks about her three husbands. Matthew Bagnet The owner of a music shop; a former soldier who has kept up a friendship with George Rouncewell. Mrs. Bagnet Matthew's sensible, wholesome, good-natured wife. Malta, Quebec, and Woolwich Bagnet The Bagnets' happy children. Miss Barbary Lady Dedlock's sister who raised Esther Summerson for a time and who was once Boythorn's beloved. Lawrence Boythorn The passionate, boisterous, but good-hearted friend of Mr. Jarndyce modeled on the poet Walter Savage Landor, a friend of Dickens). Inspector Bucket A shrewd, relentless, but amiable and thoughtful detective. Mrs. Bucket The detective's keen-witted and helpful wife. William Buffy, M.P. A political friend of Sir Leicester Dedlock. Richard Carstone A cousin of Ada Clare; a restless, indecisive ward of Mr. Jarndyce. The Reverend Mr. Chadband A pompous, insincere preacher, the incarnation of religiosity. Mrs. Chadband Formerly Mrs.

Rachael, who knew Esther Summerson as a child. The Lord High Chancellor The presiding official of the Chancery Court. Ada Clare A ward of Mr. Jarndyce and a close friend of Esther Summerson; like Esther, she is an ideally virtuous young woman. Lady Honoria Dedlock The charming, self-controlled wife of Sir Leicester and mother of Esther Summerson; the tragic protagonist of this novel. Sir Leicester Dedlock A proud, honorable aristocrat with an estate, Chesney Wold, in Lincolnshire. Volumnia Dedlock A somewhat giddy, elderly cousin of Sir Leicester and a frequent guest at Chesney Wold. The Misses Donny Twins who run Greenleaf, the boarding school where Esther Summerson spends some of her early years before going to Bleak House. Miss Flite A well-meaning, ineffectual old woman driven half mad by the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Mr. Gridley ("the man from Shropshire") A man befriended by George Rouncewell and eventually driven to suicide by the frustrations of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. William Guppy A law clerk who twice proposes to Esther Summerson.

Guster A maidservant of the Snagsbys, she often has "fits." Captain Hawdon (Nemo) A former army officer and, at the time of the story, an impoverished law writer (copyist); he is Esther Summerson's father. Mademoiselle Hortense A hot-tempered and vengeful French maid dismissed by Lady Dedlock; eventually she murders Tulkinghorn. John Jarndyce The benevolent owner of Bleak House and legal guardian of Esther Summerson, Richard Carstone, and Ada Clare. Tom Jarndyce John Jarndyce's cousin, made suicidal by the frustrations of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Mrs. Jellyby A woman obsessed with social activism and neglectful of her own family Mr. Jellyby The long-suffering, mild-mannered husband of the neglectful Mrs. Jellyby. Caddy (Carolyn) Jellyby Mrs. Jellyby's eldest daughter; she becomes a close friend of Esther and marries Prince Turveydrop. "Peepy" Jellyby The sadly neglected youngest son of the Jellybys. Jenny The wife of a brickmaker in St. Albans.

Jo (Toughey) A street-crossing sweeper in the Holborn district where the Chancery Court is located. Jobling (Tony, Weevle) A law-writer friend of William Guppy. Mr. Kenge A senior partner in the legal firm of Kenge and Carboy. Mr. Krook A grotesque old man who owns a rag-and-bottle shop and rents a room to Captain Hawdon. Liz A brickmaker's wife and a friend of Jenny. Mercury A footman in the household of Sir Leicester Dedlock. Neckett ("Coavinses") A sheriff's officer who arrests Harold Skimpole. Charley (Charlotte) Neckett Neckett's daughter who, after his death, become Esther's maid at Bleak House Mrs. Pardiggle A busybody social worker who rules despotically over her six sons. Rosa Lady Dedlock's maid; she marries Watt Rouncewell. Mrs. Rouncewell The kindly old housekeeper for the Dedlocks at Chesney Wold. Mr. Rouncewell One of her sons, an iron master. George Rouncewell (Mr. George) Mrs.

Rouncewell's other son, owner of a London shooting gallery. Watt Rouncewell Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, betrothed to Rosa. Harold Skimpole A socially cheerful but irresponsible and parasitic man who is protected but eventually repudiated by John Jarndyce. Grandfather Smallweed A mean, greedy old invalid who personifies ruthless opportunism. Grandmother Smallweed The opportunist's childish wife. Bartholomew Smallweed The Smallweeds' grandson. Judy Smallweed The Smallweeds' granddaughter. Mr. Snagsby The rather timid owner of a store dealing in stationery supplies used in the law. Mrs. Snagsby A suspicious and jealous, if intelligent, woman who thinks that her husband may be the father of Jo. Phil Squod The droll, disfigured, loyal servant of George Rouncewell. Hon. Bob Stables A young, unemployed friend of the Dedlocks. Esther Summerson A ward of Mr. Jarndyce and daughter of Lady Dedlock; she narrates a large part of the story. Little Swills A comic vocalist. Mr. Tangle A lawyer in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Mr.

Tulkinghorn Sir Leicester Dedlock's chief legal counsel; a secretive, arrogant, obscurely vindictive man determined to discover Lady Dedlock's secret. Prince Turveydrop A charming young dancing-master overworked by his father; he marries Caddy Jellyby. Mr. Turveydrop The founder of a dancing school, for which he takes all the credit while his son Prince does all the work. Mr. Vholes A jargon-speaking, unprincipled lawyer advising Richard Carstone. Allan Woodcourt A noble-hearted young doctor who marries Esther Summerson. Mrs. Woodcourt Allan's elderly mother, somewhat of an interfering old "biddy." Bleak House Characters | GradeSaver Lady Dedlock's French maid, who is dismissed and who thereafter resents her former employer. Mr. Vholes An unscrupulous lawyer employed fruitlessly by Richard Carstone on the Jarndyce & Jarndyce suit. Mr. Skimpole An amusing but amoral sponger. He sometimes partakes of Mr. Jarndyce's hospitality. Mr. Jarndyce usually tolerates him, but Esther soon grows to abhor him. He introduces Mr. Vholes to Richard.

Lady Dedlock The fashionable and stoic wife of Sir Leicester Dedlock. She is the mother of Esther, but did not raise her because she was told that Esther died soon after birth. She lives at Chesney Wold and a house in London. She was born Honoria Barbary. Sir Leicester Dedlock A baronet of a family 700 years old. His country seat is Chesney Wold. He personifies the old aristocracy of England, and is reactionary in his social views. He is enamored of his wife, and married her even though she was slightly below him in social position. Richard Carstone A ward in Chancery, and under the legal guardianship of John Jarndyce. A handsome, apt young man, who lacks direction and succumbs easily to the suggestions of others. He loves his distant cousin, Ada Clare. Charley Neckett The daughter of the bailiff Coavinses (Neckett). She becomes a maid to Esther after her father's death. Her name is actually Charlotte. George Rouncewell (Mr. George) A former soldier, he runs a shooting gallery in London. He is the son of Mrs. Rouncewell.

A principled military man, with more personal honor than business acumen. Mrs. Rouncewell The old housekeeper at Chesney Wold. Mr. Tangle A lawyer in the Jarndyce & Jarndyce matter. He appears in the Court of Chancery. Dr. Allan Woodcourt A charitable and level-headed, yet poor, young doctor. He loves Esther Summerson, and is a friend of John Jarndyce. Krook The owner of a rag and bottle shop in London, near the Court of Chancery. He is Nemo's and Miss Flite's landlord. Rosa A young village girl, elevated to the position of lady's maid to Lady Dedlock. She replaces Mademoiselle Hortense. Tom Jarndyce A character deceased before the novel begins. John Jarndyce's great uncle (Krook calls them cousins, a Victorian term for relations of that degree), who killed himself in despair over the Jarndyce & Jarndyce case. Tom-All-Alone's was his property, or the property of the Jarndyce suit, and has gone to rack and ruin.

Jenny The brickmaker's wife, from the town of St. Alban's. She has a drunken husband, and her baby dies. She befriends Jo. Neckett (Coavinses) Charley Neckett's father, the bailiff who came to Bleak House to collect Mr. Skimpole's debt. Mr. Kenge A lawyer in the firm of Kenge and Carboy's. He is assigned to Esther's case when she is made a ward of John Jarndyce. Mr. Snagsby The law stationery shopkeeper who employs Nemo. He also befriends Jo. Mrs. Snagsby Mr. Snagsby's suspicious and jealous wife. Jo A street orphan of no education, family, or support. He attempts to eke out a living as a crossing sweeper. Various characters in the novel befriend him, but none manage to save him from an early death. He is Sir Leicester Dedlock's social and economic opposite. Mr. Rouncewell Son of Mrs. Rouncewell. An ironmaster. Father of Watt Rouncewell. Watt Rouncewell Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson. In love with the maid Rosa.

Grandfather Smallweed A greedy man in a wheelchair, who buys Krook's shop after his death. The personification of capitalist opportunism in the novel. Grandmother Smallweed Smallweed's wife -- an infantile woman. Batholomew Smallweed The Smallweeds' granddaughter. Usually goes about with her grandfather to "shake him up". Phil Squod Mr. George's servant, and loyal friend. He is disfigured but usually very cheerful. Hon. Bob Stables A friend of the Dedlocks. An aristocratic, idle youth. Prince Turveydrop A young man who works as a dancing master in his father's studio. He is overworked and underappreciated. He marries Caddy Jellyby. Mr. Turveydrop The foppish, ridiculous, and neglectful father of Prince. He runs the dancing school. Mrs. Woodcourt Allan Woodcourt's elderly mother. Mr. Guppy A clerk in Kenge and Carboy's. He is enamored of Esther Summerson, though he loses his affection for a while after her smallpox scarring. He has a higher opinion of himself than most of the characters in the novel do.

Though hampered by a lower-class accent, he attempts to use flowery legal and social language and poetic constructions in his speech. He is instrumental in solving the mystery of Esther's parentage. Mrs. Guppy Guppy's strange, lower-middle-class mother. Mr. Gridley Called the "Man from Shropshire". The unending nature of the Jarndyce suit drives him at last to suicide. Mr. Boythorn A neighbor of Sir Leicester Dedlock. A friend of John Jarndyce. Mrs. Jellyby A hopeless do-gooder. Mother of a large, neglected family. Mr. Jellyby Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Introduction Bleak House is not certainly Dickens's best book; but perhaps it is his best novel. Such a distinction is not a mere verbal trick; it has to be remembered rather constantly in connection with his work. This particular story represents the highest point of his intellectual maturity. Maturity does not necessarily mean perfection. It is idle to say that a mature potato is perfect; some people like new potatoes.

A mature potato is not perfect, but it is a mature potato; the mind of an intelligent epicure may find it less adapted to his particular purpose; but the mind of an intelligent potato would at once admit it as being, beyond all doubt, a genuine, fully developed specimen of his own particular species. The same is in some degree true even of literature. We can say more or less when a human being has come to his full mental growth, even if we go so far as to wish that he had never come to it. Children are very much nicer than grown-up people; but there is such a thing as growing up. When Dickens wrote Bleak House he had grown up. Like Napoleon, he had made his army on the march. He had walked in front of his mob of aggressive characters as Napoleon did in front of the half-baked battalions of the Revolution. And, like Napoleon, he won battle after battle before he knew his own plan of campaign; like Napoleon, he put the enemies' forces to rout before he had put his own force into order Like Napoleon, he had a victorious army almost before he had an army.

After his decisive victories Napoleon began to put his house in order; after his decisive victories Dickens also began to put his house in order. The house, when he had put it in order, was Bleak House. There was one thing common to nearly all the other Dickens tales, with the possible exception of Dombey and Son. They were all rambling tales; and they all had a perfect right to be. They were all rambling tales for the very simple reason that they were all about rambling people. They were novels of adventure; they were even diaries of travel. Since the hero strayed from place to place, it did not seem unreasonable that the story should stray from subject to subject. This is true of the bulk of the novels up to and including David Copperfield, up to the very brink or threshold of Bleak House. Mr. Pickwick wanders about on the white English roads, always looking for antiquities and always finding novelties. Poor Oliver Twist wanders along the same white roads to seek his fortune and to find his misfortune. Nicholas Nickleby goes walking across England because he is young and hopeful; Little Nell's grandfather does the same thing because he is old and silly.

There is not much in common between Samuel Pickwick and Oliver Twist; there is not much in common between Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby; there is not much in common (let us hope) between Little Nell's grandfather and any other human being. But they all have this in common, that they may actually all have trodden in each other's footprints. They were all wanderers on the face of the same fair English land. Martin Chuzzlewit was only made popular by the travels of the hero in America. When we come to Dombey and Son we find, as I have said, an exception; but even here it is odd to note the fact that it was an exception almost by accident. In Dickens's original scheme of the story, much greater prominence was to have been given to the travels and trials of Walter Gay; in fact, the young man was to have had a deterioration of character which could only have been adequately detailed in him in his character of a vagabond and a wastrel. The most important point, however, is that when we come to David Copperfield, in some sense the summit of his serious literature, we find the thing still there.

The hero still wanders from place to place, his genius is still gipsy. The adventures in the book are less violent and less improbable than those which wait for Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby; but they are still adventures and not merely events; they are still things met on a road. The facts of the story fall away from David as such facts do fall away from a traveller walking fast. We are more likely perhaps, to pass by Mr. Creakle's school than to pass by Mrs. Jarley's wax-works. The only point is that we should pass by both of them. Up to this point in Dickens's development, his novel, however true, is still picaresque; his hero never really rests anywhere in the story. No one seems really to know where Mr. Pickwick lived. Here he has no abiding city. When we come to Bleak House, we come to a change in artistic structure. The thing is no longer a string of incidents; it is a cycle of incidents. It returns upon itself; it has recurrent melody and poetic justice; it has artistic constancy and artistic revenge. It preserves the unities; even to some extent it preserves the unities of time and place.

The story circles round two or three symbolic places; it does not go straggling irregularly all over England like one of Mr. Pickwick's coaches. People go from one place to another place; but not from one place to another place on the road to everywhere else. Mr. Jarndyce goes from Bleak House to visit Mr. Boythorn; but he comes back to Bleak House. Miss Clare and Miss Summerson go from Bleak House to visit Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger; but they come back to Bleak House. The whole story strays from Bleak House and plunges into the foul fogs of Chancery and the autumn mists of Chesney Wold; but the whole story comes back to Bleak House. The domestic title is appropriate; it is a permanent address. Dickens's openings are almost always good; but the opening of Bleak House is good in a quite new and striking sense. Nothing could be better, for instance, than the first foolish chapter about the genealogy of the Chuzzlewits; but it has nothing to do with the Chuzzlewits.

Nothing could be better than the first chapter of David Copperfield; the breezy entrance and banging exit of Miss Betsey Trotwood. But if there is ultimately any crisis or serious subject-matter of David Copperfield, it is the marred marriage with Dora, the final return to Agnes; and all this is in no way involved in the highly-amusing fact that his aunt expected him to be a girl. We may repeat that the matter is picaresque. The story begins in one place and ends in another place, and there is no real connection between the beginning and the end except a biographical connection. A picaresque novel is only a very eventful biography; but the opening of Bleak House is quite another business altogether. It is admirable in quite another way. The description of the fog in the first chapter of Bleak House is good in itself; but it is not merely good in itself, like the description of the wind in the opening of Martin Chuzzlewit; it is also good in the sense that Maeterlinck is good; it is what the modern people call an atmosphere. Dickens begins in the Chancery fog because he means to end in the Chancery fog.

He did not begin in the Chuzzlewit wind because he meant to end in it; he began in it because it was a good beginning. This is perhaps the best short way of stating the peculiarity of the position of Bleak House. In this Bleak House beginning we have the feeling that it is not only a beginning; we have the feeling that the author sees the conclusion and the whole. The beginning is alpha and omega: the beginning and the end. He means that all the characters and all the events shall be read through the smoky colours of that sinister and unnatural vapour. The same is true throughout the whole tale; the whole tale is symbolic and crowded with symbols. Miss Flite is a funny character, like Miss La Creevy, but Miss La Creevy means only Miss La Creevy. Miss Flite means Chancery. The rag-and-bone man, Krook, is a powerful grotesque; so is Quilp; but in the story Quilp only means Quilp; Krook means Chancery. Rick Carstone is a kind and tragic figure, like Sidney Carton; but Sidney Carton only means the tragedy of human nature; Rick Carstone means the tragedy of Chancery.

Little Jo dies pathetically like Little Paul; but for the death of Little Paul we can only blame Dickens; for the death of Little Jo we blame Chancery. Thus the artistic unity of the book, compared to all the author's earlier novels, is satisfying, almost suffocating. There is the motif, and again the motif. Almost everything is calculated to assert and re-assert the savage morality of Dickens's protest against a particular social evil. The whole theme is that which another Englishman as jovial as Dickens defined shortly and finally as the law's delay. The fog of the first chapter never lifts. In this twilight he traced wonderful shapes. Those people who fancy that Dickens was a mere clown; that he could not describe anything delicate or deadly in the human character, -- those who fancy this are mostly people whose position is explicable in many easy ways. The vast majority of the fastidious critics have, in the quite strict and solid sense of the words, never read Dickens at all; hence their opposition is due to and inspired by a hearty innocence which will certainly make them enthusiastic Dickensians if they ever. by some accident, happen to read him.

In other cases it is due to a certain habit of reading books under the eye of a conventional critic, admiring what we expect to admire, regretting what we are told to regret, waiting for Mr. Bumble to admire him, waiting for Little Nell to despise her. Yet again, of course, it is sometimes due to that basest of all artistic indulgences (certainly far baser than the pleasure of absinthe or the pleasure of opium), the pleasure of appreciating works of art which ordinary men cannot appreciate. Surely the vilest point of human vanity is exactly that; to ask to be admired for admiring what your admirers do not admire. But whatever be the reason, whether rude or subtle, which has prevented any particular man from personally admiring Dickens, there is in connection with a book like Bleak House something that may be called a solid and impressive challenge. Let anyone who thinks that Dickens could not describe the semi-tones and the abrupt instincts of real human nature simply take the trouble to read the stretch of chapters which detail the way in which Carstone's mind grew gradually morbid about his chances in Chancery.

Let him note the manner in which the mere masculinity of Carstone is caught; how as he grows more mad he grows more logical, nay, more rational. Good women who love him come to him, and point out the fact that Jarndyce is a good man, a fact to them solid like an object of the senses. In answer he asks them to understand his position. He does not say this; he does not say that. He only urges that Jarndyce may have become cynical in the affair in the same sense that he himself may have become cynical in the affair. He is always a man; that is to say, he is always unanswerable, always wrong. The passionate certainty of the woman beats itself like battering waves against the thin smooth wall of his insane consistency. I repeat: let any one who thinks that Dickens was a gross and indelicate artist read that part of the book. If Dickens had been the clumsy journalist that such people represent, he never could have written such an episode at all. A clumsy journalist would have made Rick Carstone in his mad career cast off Esther and Ada and the others. The great artist knew better.

He knew that even if all the good in a man is dying, the last sense that dies is the sense that knows a good woman from a bad; it is like the scent of a noble hound. The clumsy journalist would have made Rick Carstone turn on John Jarndyce with an explosion of hatred, as of one who had made an exposure -- who had found out what low people call "a false friend" in what they call "his true colours." The great artist knew better; he knew that a good man going wrong tries to salve his soul to the last with the sense of generosity and intellectual justice. He will try to love his enemy if only out of mere love of himself. As the wolf dies fighting, the good man gone wrong dies arguing. This is what constitutes the true and real tragedy of Richard Carstone. It is strictly the one and only great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged about Europe in his last childhood.

The tragedy of Steerforth is only that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is still alive when the quicksand sucks him down. It is impossible to avoid putting in the first place this pall of smoke which Dickens has deliberately spread over the story. It is quite true that the country underneath is clear enough to contain any number of unconscious comedians or of merry monsters such as he was in the custom of introducing into the carnival of his tales. But he meant us to take the smoky atmosphere seriously. Charles Dickens, who was, like all men who are really funny about funny things, horribly serious about serious things, certainly meant us to read this story in terms of his protest and his insurrection against the emptiness and arrogance of law, against the folly and the pride of judges. Everything else that there is in this story entered into it through the unconscious or accidental energy of his genius, which broke in at every gap. But it was the tragedy of Richard Carstone that he meant, not the comedy of Harold Skimpole. He could not help being amusing; but he meant to be depressing.

Another case might be taken as testing the greater seriousness of this tale. The passages about Mrs. Jellyby and her philanthropic schemes show Dickens at his best in his old and more familiar satiric manner. But in the midst of the Jellyby pandemonium, which is in itself described with the same abandon and irrelevance as the boarding-house of Mrs. Todgers or the travelling theatre of Mr. Crummles, the elder Dickens introduced another piece of pure truth and even tenderness. I mean the account of Caddy Jellyby. If Carstone is a truly masculine study of how a man goes wrong, Caddy is a perfectly feminine study of how a girl goes right.

Nowhere else perhaps in fiction, and certainly nowhere else in Dickens, is the mere female paradox so well epitomised, the unjust use of words covering so much capacity for a justice of ultimate estimate; the seeming irresponsibility in language concealing such a fixed and pitiless sense of responsibility about things; the air of being always at daggers-drawn with her own kindred, yet the confession of incurable kinship implied in pride and shame; and, above all, that thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; that strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue. Every touch in her is true, from her first bewildering outbursts of hating people because she likes them, down to the sudden quietude and good sense which announces that she has slipped into her natural place as a woman. Miss Clare is a figure-head, Miss Summerson in some ways a failure; but Miss Caddy Jellyby is by far the greatest, the most human, and the most really dignified of all the heroines of Dickens.

With one or two exceptions, all the effects in this story are of this somewhat quieter kind, though none of them are so subtly successful as Rick Carstone and Caddy. Harold Skimpole begins as a sketch drawn with a pencil almost as airy and fanciful as his own. The humour of the earlier scenes is delightful -- the scenes in which Skimpole looks on at other people paying his debts with the air of a kindly outsider, and suggests in formless legal phraseology that they might "sign something" or "make over something," or the scene in which he tries to explain the advantages of accepting everything to the apoplectic Mr. Boythorn. But it was one of the defects of Dickens as a novelist that his characters always became coarser and clumsier as they passed through the practical events of a story, and this would necessarily be so with Skimpole, whose position was conceivable even to himself only on the assumption that he was a mere spectator of life. Poor Skimpole only asked to be kept out of the business of this world, and Dickens ought to have kept him out of the business of Bleak House. By the end of the tale he has brought Skimpole to doing acts of mere low villainy.

This altogether spoils the ironical daintiness of the original notion. Skimpole was meant to end with a note of interrogation. As it is, he ends with a big, black, unmistakable blot. Speaking purely artistically, we may say that this is as great a collapse or vulgarisation as if Richard Carstone had turned into a common blackguard and wife-beater, or Caddy Jellyby into a comic and illiterate landlady. Upon the whole it may, I think, be said that the character of Skimpole is rather a piece of brilliant moralising than of pure observation or creation. Dickens had a singularly just mind. He was wild in his caricatures, but very sane in his impressions. Many of his books were devoted, and this book is partly devoted, to a denunciation of aristocracy -- of the idle class that lives easily upon the toil of nations. But he was fairer than many modern revolutionists, and he insisted on satirising also those who prey on society not in the name of rank or law, but in the name of intellect and beauty. Sir Leicester Dedlock and Mr.

Harold Skimpole are alike in accepting with a royal unconsciousness the anomaly and evil of their position. But the idleness and insolence of the aristocrat is human and humble compared to the idleness and insolence of the artist. With the exception of a few fine freaks, such as Turveydrop and Chadband, all the figures in this book are touched more delicately, even more faintly, than is common with Dickens. But if the figures are touched more faintly, it is partly because they are figures in a fog -- the fog of Chancery. Dickens meant that twilight to be oppressive; for it was the symbol of oppression. Deliberately he did not dispel the darkness at the end of this book, as he does dispel it at the end of most of his books. Pickwick gets out of the Fleet Prison; Carstone never gets out of Chancery but by death. This tyranny, Dickens said, shall not be lifted by the light subterfuge of a fiction. This tyranny shall never be lifted till all Englishmen lift it together.

On Reading Dickens | The American Conservative October 23, 2012 at 8:46 am I read David Copperfield when I was 16 years old and was so enthralled and moved by it, that I have never re-read it for fear of being disappointed. I did read Bleak House in college and found it a bit of a chore to get through. Having recently read Edgar Johnson’s 1953 two-volume biography of Dickens, which is outstanding, I have downloaded most of the great Dickens novels for free on Kindle and hope to re-visit the above two as well as read a few I simply have never gotten to. By the way, the recent Masterpiece Theater production of Bleak House was outstanding and folks may want to check it out before venturing to start on the monumental Bleak House. Matt in TX October 23, 2012 at 8:49 am Sorry, but no, no, no, a thousand times no! Esther Summerson is not very memorable. Who ever mentions her? Who talks about her? Who thinks of her?

She’s a fairly interchangeable Victorian heroine, and Dickens himself undercuts her with his ending — she doesn’t even know what she wants out of life, she has to be shown by the men around her. Also, Harold Skimpole is one of Dickens’ worst: he’s one note on a piano that Dickens keeps banging over and over every time he comes into the picture, and it’s not a joyful or pleasant note, not one we ever want to hear. David Copperfield and Great Expectations are better known, and better loved, and deservedly so. Jeff I’m curious to hear what you think the other greatest novels in English are. I always thought at least Middlemarch, Moby Dick, and some combination of Henry James novels superior to Bleak House. Nathan October 23, 2012 at 11:24 am “A Tale of Two Cities” for no other reason than the opening line which most everyone knows, “It was the best of times it was the worst of times”. But also the visualizations are wonderful too. I think sometimes he was the Leon Uris of his day given to historical fiction when a straight history of those dramatic events would have served just as well.

(James Michener was similar in his approach with “Hawaii”.) For both writers Uris for example with “Exodus” and “Mila 18” and Dickens with “A Tale of Two Cities” they did the research, knew the subject matter at a very high level of detail and yet chose historical fiction over straight history which might very well have made just as compelling reading. Interesting choices . . . October 23, 2012 at 7:22 pm Bleak House is certainly superior to David Copperfield if only because the writing within it is much more focused: it knows where it’s going and never lets us off the hook. Esther, is different to most of Dickens’ heroines, because she knows much more about herself than the others; she is much aware of other people, and by giving her her own voice rather than writing about her from the outside, Dickens does something he never quite manages with any of the other young women who feature in his books. Most of his heroines are bland; they belong in cheap melodramas. Esther actually goes on a journey and while it may not be a very adventurous one, it does achieve something in her life.

And she’s often quite annoying, but in a way that’s altogether different to the way his other heroines are annoying: they annoy because they’re so skimpily drawn; she annoys because she has some reality. But I certainly agree about Skimpole: he never takes off as a character, and has no sympathetic qualities whatsoever. Harris October 23, 2012 at 10:39 pm I would second the comments on Skimpole. His carelessness is itself a sort of mannered speech like a squid’s ink. The person hides behind it, and we rarely see him; perhaps in his home, and again in Bucket’s sharp insight. There’s also a tension between Skimpole’s caricatured Romanticism and Dickens’ own pastoral inclinations (e.g. George’s last scene, turning his back on the Manchester mills to head to the country; or for that matter the sugary description of the New Bleak House in Yorkshire, Esther’s new home). I would think that it is the tug of Romanticism in Dickens that prevents him from seeing or developing Skimpole, the arch Romantic.

Nergol October 24, 2012 at 3:32 am English M.A. candidate finishing a thesis on Dickens here. I second Bleak House as Dickens’s best. Not only his most involving, but his best prose. As to Esther: She’s a cipher, but so what? Bleak House is not Esther’s story, and it’s not meant to be. Bleak House is an ensemble piece. Too strong a protagonist would simply take away from that. Esther is exactly what Dickens wanted, and needed, her to be. As to Skimpole: Of course he has no sympathetic qualities. He’s a villain, and maybe the most insidious one in all of Dickens. He’s also a thinly-veiled fictional version of Leigh Hunt, one of the hangers-on in the circle of the Romantic poets in general and Byron in particular. I agree that Skimpole was something of an in-joke for people who knew Hunt, but he does make sense as a character and his inclusion does have a point to make even if you don’t.

If there’s any character that falls flat in Bleak House, it’s Jo – an unfortunate sop to Dickens’s one great flaw: an excess of maudlin sentimentalism, especially when it came to children and the poor. But in such a large and sprawling work, one sour note is easily enough lost. Great Ex is a solid second place, but nothing ever quite reaches the power of Dickens’s work in Bleak House. His worst? Perhaps the insufferably maudlin The Old Curiosity Shop, or the positively boring Martin Chuzzlewit. Alan Jacobs October 24, 2012 at 7:55 am I want to endorse Nergol’s point about the novel being an ensemble piece but also say a word or two in defense of Esther, who I think starts out ciphery but ends up being something more. It’s not true to say that she doesn’t know what she wants: from the time she meets Allan Woodcourt she wants him, but thinks she can’t have him, so determines to settle cheerfully for what life seems to be offering her. It just turns out that life has something more to offer than she had dared hope.

She also, despite her constant (and admittedly annoying) self-deprecation, proves to have more steel in her than anyone would ever suspect: it’s to illustrate that point that I quoted the passage in which she stands up to the formidable Mrs. Pardiggle. Esther even has an admirable theory of how to act for the common good. All that said, Nergol is right that she isn’t meant to be especially vivid: she functions as a kind of quiet connector to other characters, and is meant to contrast to the conspicuousness of her mother. And I would just add that no one should complain of Esther being a standard Victorian female character whose favorite Dickens novel features Dora and Agnes. 🙂 Likewise, those who would complain of Skimpole being a one-note character should, in consistency, make the same complaint about Uriah Heep and Mr. Micawber. But these characters are meant to strike a single note, and I think most readers agree that Dickens is uniquely gifted in creating figures of this odd kind. cw Bleak House was one of the novels Nabokov chose to teach and which he thought was great. Lulu October 24, 2012 at 2:55 pm “. . .

and all that David Copperfield kind of crap . . .” That’s in the opening sentence of The Catcher in the Rye (if you want to know the truth). So I’m gonna go with David Copperfield. Nergol October 25, 2012 at 4:21 am Bleak House is also perhaps Dickens’s most philosophically and ideologically nuanced novel. This is important for someone like Dickens, who occasionally (OK, maybe more than occasionally) had the tendency to beat his readers over the head with his pet sociopolitical messages. There are many villains in Bleak House as well, but the main one is, of course, the Chancery court system itself. This made it perhaps Dickens’s most unusual villain: a system, not a person – nameless, faceless, the evil that it does not driven by any real malice, all of it nobody in particular’s fault. In this, he presages Kafka and Orwell. It would have been easy to make Sir Leicester into a harsh, cold, uncaring, completely unsympathetic caricature of nobility, but Dickens didn’t.

His wife is a trophy, to be sure, but he loves her genuinely, even in the face of the ruin of his reputation through her disgrace. Through Sir Leicester, Dickens, a man who had little use for titled aristocracy, made his acknowledgement that his country’s nobility was at least indeed genuinely noble. Noble, but, for better or worse, rendered obsolete by events beyond their control. To be made irrelevant soon enough. Bleak House and Brideshead Revisited can be seen as bookends on either side of that process. But I rant. October 25, 2012 at 4:52 am As a meaningless aside, I believe Bleak House to be the greatest novel ever written in English, and The Master and Margarita to be the greatest written in any language. You won’t find a more profound statement of Christian faith, or one that’s more necessary or appropriate to the post-1914 world, than Bulgakov’s. Harris October 26, 2012 at 12:01 am More on Skimpole: where others seem to have an inner motivation for actions, HS seems something of a cipher.

On the surface there is something unworldly, even grotesque in his verbal mannerisms. The cues as to his dimensionality are sparse (e.g. his family, his training as a doctor, both pointing to a broader life, one that exists outside the text). In this, HS reminds me most of those characters in theatre that can seem so flat at first reading, yet the actor finds in the role a real person. Nergol Bleak House is a masterpiece, but I can’t help coming away from the thread on Defending the Liberal Arts thinking that perhaps the Dickens novel we really need now most of all is Hard Times. There seem to be a lot of Gradgrinds and Bounderbys in the world. Nergol October 26, 2012 at 5:41 pm Harris; Skimpole is simple to understand. His act is just that – an act. Underneath all the bulls**t, he’s just a lazy inconsiderate selfish irresponsible bum who uses his rather large reserve of charm in order to find ways to skip out on his responsibilities and sponge off his friends. He isn’t “just a child”. He doesn’t even really believe himself to be one.

He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s just a species of con artist with a charming story to tell. Bottom line, it really is just as simple as that. Dickens had great sympathy for the desperate poor, but none for idle scroungers. Skimpole was, as Hunt was, exactly that, and Dickens had no problem with attacking them. David

Question: In which Dickens novel would you find the characters :- Esther Summerson, Allan Woodcourt, and Harold Skimpole ?
Answer: BLEAK HOUSE