Draft:Anatomy of Society in The Bleak House
Analysis of society in Charles Dickens's novel ''Bleak House''
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Bleak House (French: La Maison d'Âpre-Vent), the ninth novel by Charles Dickens—first published in twenty serial installments between March 1852 and September 1853, then in a single volume later that year—is one of his first major panoramic works.[1]. In it, he describes England as a “bleak house,” a dwelling of desolation ravaged by an irresponsible and venal judicial system[2] embodied by the Lord Chancellor, wrapped in the foggy glory of the Court of Chancery[2]. The story is rooted in a disputed inheritance lawsuit before the court, the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, which affects all the characters directly or indirectly and concerns an obscure will and large sums of money.
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|  |
 Cover of the first number, March 1852. | |
| Author | Charles Dickens |
|---|---|
| Original title | Bleak House |
| Cover artist | Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel (institutional and social satire) |
| Publisher | Chapman and Hall |
| Publication date | 1853 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
Published in English | 1853 |
| Media type | Print (serial, volume) |
| Preceded by | David Copperfield |
| Followed by | Hard Times |
The criticisms of the legal system draw on the personal experience of Charles Dickens as a law clerk. His severe portrayal of delays, bureaucratic complexity, and court inefficiency reflects the growing public dissatisfaction of the period; it has sometimes been considered that the novel helped prepare minds for the judicial reforms of the 1870s[2]. Dickens was writing at a time when the system was already changing: the “six clerks and masters” mentioned in the first chapter had been abolished in 1842 and 1852, and more far-reaching reforms were under discussion. This context complicates the dating of Bleak House: based on historical facts, the action would have taken place before 1842 — a detail some readers have noted — but this dating conflicts with other aspects of the novel, leaving the question unresolved[2]. The double narrative strategy — a third-person account dealing with legal affairs and high society, and a first-person account embodied by Esther Summerson[2] -allows Dickens to link, while also contrasting, domestic experience with major public issues.
Bleak House also echoes many important events drawn both from Charles Dickens’s personal life and from current affairs. In doing so, it reflects his personal, political, and social concerns and, like his other novels, offers a detailed portrait of society whose features were easily recognizable to readers of the time[2]. This portrayal does not claim to be fully objective; instead, it prioritizes the author’s own views and values, above all, his conviction that salvation depends on what he called the "values of the heart" within each individual[3].
The contemporary relevance of Bleak House
Throughout his career, Dickens remained a journalist well-versed in observing social abuses and the manners of his time, which allowed the novelist he rapidly became to gradually project his views throughout his works. Up to this point, he had followed the tradition of his eighteenth-century predecessors, particularly Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, but with Bleak House the picture changes: no single aspect is privileged; instead, a general vision is offered, integrating the diversity of all the details previously explored[4].
“The Condition of England” (Thomas Carlyle)
Furthermore, the social injustices highlighted by Thomas Carlyle in 1839, in what he called in Chartism[5] the “Condition-of-England question,”[6] and pursued through numerous pamphlets[7], were central to intellectual debates of the period. Faced with the misery and suffering of the people, he observed, two attitudes were officially practiced: “accept and promise happiness in the afterlife” and “save the world with rose water”[4]. Dickens fully endorsed this diagnosis[6], and it is reflected in Bleak House, where individuals and groups correspond to these categories: the voiceless crowd of the destitute represented by Jo, the bricklayer’s family, and the residents of the slums of Tom-All-Alone’s; defeatists are represented by Sir Leicester Dedlock and his guests at Chesney Wold; the philanthropists Mrs Jellyby and Mrs Pardiggle; and the dissenters represented by Mr Chadband[8].
The year 1851 also followed the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England, regarded by many as a “papal aggression,” particularly on the part of the Puseyites, disciples of Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882), who, elected fellow of Oriel College at Oxford, joined the Oxford Movement of John Henry Newman and John Keble. This religious context is reflected in Bleak House through characters such as Mrs Pardiggle, who names her children after early Church saints and requires her family to attend early morning prayers each day[8].
Institutions
The scandalous Court of Chancery
The denunciation of the Court of Chancery also has deep roots. Dickens himself suffered from it during the lawsuit he brought concerning plagiarism of his A Christmas Carol[9],[10].On 13 May and 9 August 1850 he published two pamphlets in Household Words entitled “The Martyrs of Chancery,”[11],[12] in which he denounced the long-term imprisonment of supposed offenders who were in fact victims of systemic incoherence.
John Forster himself reinforced the point by publishing, based on a document entitled The Exact Relation, a summary of an extract from the “Parliamentary Debates in the 17th century”. Written in 1839, the text illustrates a situation that, in his view, had changed very little over time[13]:
Complaints had been made against the Court of Chancery; against its dilatory procedure; against the enormous costs it imposed on litigants […] It was undoubtedly […] the nation’s greatest grievance […] 23,000 cases were pending before this court, some of which had lasted five, ten, twenty and thirty years! […] Many families had been ruined and even destroyed there […] In a word, […] the Court of Chancery was nothing less than a mystery of maleficence and a permanent swindle[14].
A year later, the institution was also attacked by The Times, which denounced its inefficiency, delays, decisions—when they finally came—as most often erratic, and the corruption of its judges[15]. The case of Gridley, referred to in the novel and mentioned in the preface, is merely a composite of two cases that caused a great stir in England: one concerning the Thomas Cook family in Staffordshire[16],[17], the other known as “the famous Jennens case”, concerning the inheritance of an immensely wealthy elderly banker of Acton[18],[19].
And on 14 June, the Times renewed its campaign by reporting a case closely resembling those of Miss Flite and Richard Carstone. In fact, when Dickens began his novel in November 1851, the law reforming the institution was only a month old, and the public remained dissatisfied. He therefore merely repeated accusations that were widely accepted and more particularly advanced by the press[15].
Nevertheless, Dickens probably feared that he had gone too far, as one of the most virulent passages remained unpublished, having been removed by his own hand from the proofs. In it, Esther recounts how she warned Richard, earnestly begging him
not to place the slightest confidence in that Chancellery, in which no one placed trust, and which was universally regarded with fear, contempt, and horror; I implored him to view it as so flagrant an evil that, short of a miracle, nothing good could possibly come of it for anyone[20]
It was most likely John Forster who advised the deletion[21], believing that
the book has suffered from the very perfection with which the Chancery theme is developed. The didactic element […] is here […] of a more austere nature, insufficiently seasoned, and overwhelming[22].
In fact, matters had evolved. According to Sir William Holdsworth, historian of the English courts, Dickens’s criticisms are valid for the period in which the narrative is set—around 1827—but were far less applicable by 1850, since the most glaring abuses had gradually disappeared, even though the popular hostility they had generated had not diminished in the slightest[23].
Government inertia
In any case, Dickens placed no confidence in the Parliament to reform anything, a view he presents in his characteristically ironic manner in chapter 12, in his description of the evening gathering at “Chesney Wold”, where the clones of Boodle and Buffy parade—people
agreed to varnish over all the things of this world, who abstract themselves from all its realities, who rejoice in nothing and lament nothing; who have discovered not motion but perpetual repose, and are incapable of being stirred by any idea whatsoever; people for whom even the fine arts, powdered and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must don the costume of bygone generations and, above all, remain calm and motionless, receiving no impression from this restless century[24],[25].
This criticism of government also reflects contemporary political events that were widely discussed both at Westminster and in the press. In February, Lord Russell was defeated, and the country remained without a government for fifteen days; his successor likewise quickly encountered difficulties. The Times strongly condemned this political instability and denounced the nepotism associated with two or three families that count in politic[26],[27]. Bleak House echoes this criticism in chapter 12, when the narrator evokes “Boodle and his following” rather than “Buffy and his following”, "the great actors for whom the stage is reserved"[28],[25]. Later, in chapter 40, published in March 1853, Sir Leicester comments on the election campaign in terms that could only evoke for readers the memory of that of July 1852[29]:
Upon my honour and soul, […] the dikes that protected society are broken; the flood overflows and overturns all social boundaries, shattering everything that bound together the various elements composing the country[30]
Characters
Like the institutions, the characters are no less of their time than the action they generate[27].
Philanthropic women
Apart from Mrs Pardiggle, representing Puseyism, and her associate Mrs Jellyby, many of the women in this novel—correspondents of Mr Jarndyce—are "charged with some mission", "The Women of England"[31], "The Daughters of Great Britain"[32], "The Female Population of America", all animated by what Dickens calls 'rapacious benevolence'. One of them, Miss Wisk, makes a brief appearance at Caddy’s wedding—the only wedding in the novel—solely to
prove to the world that man and woman have no mission here below except to go from meeting to meeting provoking declaratory resolutions about everything in general[33]
Every reader readily understands Dickens’s message that "charity begins at home"; yet he also portrays in these zealots contemporary figures bustling—most often in vain—upon the public stage[34].
Thus Mrs Jellyby may well have been modeled on Mrs Caroline Chisholm, a famous philanthropist, especially in Australia, where most of her reform work was carried out. In 1850 she founded the Family Colonisation Loan Society[35],[36], which initially received Dickens’s support in Household Words, though he later distanced himself after observing the dirtiness of her children and her home[27]. Likewise, 'Borioboola-Gha' was probably inspired by an expedition mounted in 1841 to abolish slavery in the Niger River region[37],[38] and to introduce new agricultural techniques[39]. The expedition’s failure—due in part to the local ruler’s insistence on trading his few healthy subjects for rum—caused a considerable stir, and Dickens regarded it as a striking example of misplaced philanthropy, especially as several colonists lost their lives[39],[40]. Mrs Jellyby, however, does not lose heart and, at the end of the novel, turns to campaigning for women’s rights, which she intends to defend by seeking a seat in the Parliament—resulting in an enormous flood of correspondence that Dickens mocks with evident delight[34],[41].
The “new detectives” of the urban police
For contemporary readers, Inspector Bucket presented little mystery[34]. Dickens had already discussed modern policing in an article of 13 July 1850, 'New techniques for catching thieves,' published in Household Words,then in a second article published fifteen days later, in which he recounts his interviews with two detectives he called Wield and Stalker. It is clearly this Wield who served as the model for Bucket[42]: the same age, the same build, and the same habit of emphasizing his words by raising his forefinger. In September 1850, and again in June 1851, Inspector Wield reappeared in Dickens’s articles, this time under his real name, Field[43]. Dickens describes him as both well connected in criminal circles and warmly attentive to the poorest residents[42]; Bucket appears in much the same light, showing concern, among others, for the poor of Tom-All-Alone’s. Indeed, The Times remarked that Mr Dickens is engages in writing the life of Field in Bleak House[44], an assertion immediately denied by the author[45]. Yet the resemblance—his shrewdness, energy, genial character, and mannerisms—was so striking that such denials convinced no one[42].
The Sloane scandal of 1850
In 1850, a scandal erupted[46] which Dickens discussed in Household Words: a young parish workhouse ward, Jane Wilbred, about fourteen years old, was placed as a servant with Mr and Mrs Sloane. After initially treating her reasonably well[47], they turned against her, confined her, and starved her[48],[49]. Certainly, not all servants in Bleak House are mistreated: Mrs Rouncewell enjoys the respect and esteem of Sir Leicester, Rosa the affection of Lady Dedlock; Trooper George and Phil Squod remain inseparable, and Mrs Jellyby willingly shares her drinks with Priscilla to drown her sorrows. However, two characters recall the Sloane scandal — those employed by the Smallweed family: Guster and Charley Neckett. Guster suffers constant verbal abuse from Mrs Snagsby, leading to nervous fits such that her mistress incurs two reprimands from Inspector Bucket in chapters 54 and 59, while Charley, already mistreated by the Smallweeds' daughter Judy, receives only fragments of cheap cuts of meat and bad crusts of bread, with the leftovers from their cups as her only drink, highlighting themes of exploitation and social indifference[50].
The soldier’s wife and the ironmaster
The situation of military wives was one of the most discussed concerns by the public in the early 1850s[51]. Dickens published a note on the subject in Household Words in 1851[52], explaining that because pay remained very low, married soldiers were unable to afford lodging at their own expense, and that only sergeants were permitted to hang a curtain to create a private space within barrack dormitories[53]. In Bleak House he provides an example in Mrs Bagnet, whose chief concern is to exercise virtue and courage in preserving her family's dignity with nothing[50].
Mr Rouncewell, the ironmaster, stands out for his robust independence of character and conduct. Here again Dickens responded to a report in The Times on the quarterly congresses held by such industrialists, presented as exemplary at a time when the iron trade was undergoing recession[54].
These references raise the problem of the chronology of the novel. Some elements suggest that Dickens intended to situate it outside immediate current events. The details he provides about the Court of Chancery refer rather to his experience as a parliamentary reporter in the late 1820s; similarly, the Spanish refugees living near Harold Skimpole in Somers Town recall the same period, during which Dickens lived in the area from 1824 to 1829[55]. Finally, when she concludes her narrative, Esther specifies that she wrote the final paragraphs “at least seven years” after the events described, a narrative technique Dickens had already employed in David Copperfield and Dombey and Son[50].
Nevertheless, the previously mentioned details do appear in the novel, and more generally, the extension of railway lines into Lincolnshire, as well as Bucket’s collaboration with the Metropolitan Police, are indeed later. Dickens thus seems to have mixed his memories with contemporary news, at least where the most scandalous abuses were concerned[56],[57].
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