Introduction chapter one. Analysis of charles dickens’s bleak house

1.2.The other metaphor that underlies the novel is disease.
The other metaphor that underlies the novel is disease. Here Dickens follows the lead of Thomas Carlyle, who coined the phrase “Condition of England” in his essay Chartism (1839) to describe the social turmoil of the times as a form of disease. In Bleak House the infection of Chancery is seen in the Jarndyce case (its name suggestively close to jaundice); in Tom Jarndyce, who has blown his brains out before the beginning of the story; and in Richard Carstone, who catches the disease and slowly wastes away and dies. These cases are echoed in the stories of other Chancery suitors: Gridley, the Man from Shropshire, and Miss Flite, for example.
The disease metaphor has its most bizarre expression in the figure of Krook, the illiterate rag and bottle merchant, who acts an underworld parody of the Lord Chancellor. He compulsively collects legal documents and papers, but, unable to understand their contents, he can make no use of them. His papers cannot aid the cause of justice; they are simply instruments of the law. Like the gin that courses through Krook’s bloodstream, this narcissistic, self-gratifying use of law is ultimately self-destructive. In Krook’s improbable death by spontaneous combustion, an episode that drew much adverse criticism, there is a warning for the established legal system: When the law becomes totally absorbed with itself and its own procedures, it will destroy itself. Dickens defended his use of spontaneous combustion on scientific grounds, citing cases and scientific studies that confirmed the possibility, but his real defense would argue on symbolic grounds. Krook’s explosion is a small version of legal England ending in fire. Dickens concluded the preface to the novel by remarking that he had “purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things.” In Krook’s improbable death, this romantic focus explodes into magical realism⁴.
The disease metaphor is most fully developed in Jo, the illiterate crossing sweeper. He is the product of Tom-All-Alone’s, the slum in the heart of London created by Chancery, for the money that would repair and maintain the houses there is tied up in the Jarndyce case. The child is as neglected as the buildings. In a society with no public education, Jo is allowed “to know nothink,” to be less educated than a dog who has at least been trained to herd sheep. This neglected child, forced by the law to “move on,” carries the fever from the festering slum to St. Albans. There Esther is exposed, and her illness brings her identity story to its crisis, precipitating the action that leads to Lady Dedlock’s death.
Lady Dedlock’s death is only the last in a series of deaths that litter the stage of the novel with bodies. From Tom Jarndyce’s suicide, which occurs before the action of the story, the novel records the deaths of Miss Barbary, Jenny’s baby, Captain Hawdon, Krook, Neckett, Gridley, Tulkinghorn, Jo, and Richard Carstone. All of them are, in some way or other, victims of Chancery.
A constitutional society grounded in the law that neglects its citizens is like an irresponsible parent who neglects or abuses his children. Jo and Esther—and numerous other children in the novel—represent these victims of neglect. The law is not the only bad parent. Dickens also blames religion: the cruel Calvinism that engenders the psychological abuse inflicted by Esther’s aunt, the hypocritical Evangelism of the Chadbands that concentrates on converting street children like Jo rather than feeding their hunger, the “telescopic philanthropy” of those like Mrs. Jellyby who are so obsessed with missionary work in Africa that they neglect the children of England. Dickens also blames “Fashion”: the class system that leads Lady Dedlock to suppress her past relationship with Captain Hawdon and “abandon” her child and the dandyism that turns Turveydrop into an imitator of the idle aristocracy and into a parasite who exploits his son. Finally, Dickens blames the artists who, like Skimpole, celebrate beauty and pretend to be children in order to avoid taking responsibility for the ugliness around them.
Faced with such systemic ills—with a national bleak house—Jarndyce’s philanthropy seems trivial and ineffective. Indeed, Jarndyce cannot save Richard from Chancery nor Jo from smallpox. His kindness to Skimpole may, in fact, hasten Jo’s illness and death. Although he is more enlightened and less self-interested than Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pardiggle, Jarndyce’s philanthropy does not represent the solution to bleakness. His strategy is one of retreat and withdrawal; he is basically passive. In spite of his kindness, he is allied with the old order. He can preserve Bleak House, even build a replica of it, but he cannot create a new order.
Jarndyce’s inability to change things may account for the unfinished ending of the novel. It breaks off, mid-sentence, in Esther’s narrative. She is again revealing her sense of inferiority—or her coyness—and seems not to have been changed at all psychologically by the events of the novel. The scars of parental abandonment are so lasting and the wounds of her childhood are so deep that she will carry them forever, in spite of a happy marriage and loving family. There is ample textual support for this despairing conclusion.⁵
Yet there are also some reasons for hope in the final chapters of the novel. If a self-serving legal system, an obsolete aristocracy, and a narrow and repressive religion collude to deny possibilities for change and growth, there are a few characters in Bleak House who are not blinded by self-interest or enfeebled by the past. One such character is Rouncewell the Ironmaster, one of the new captains of industry. He is not intimidated by Sir Leicester’s title and position: He challenges the Dedlock candidate in the election and wins, and he removes Rosa from Chesney Wold to better educate her for a useful place in society. Inspector Bucket is also one of the new class, a professional who takes pride in his work and who carries out his duties for his client; he is one of the new Metropolitan Police who represent a new way of administering the law. Finally, Allan Woodcourt, much more than the romantic hero of the novel, is a doctor who serves his patients and ministers to the poor. If anyone can heal the diseased condition of England, it will be such a man.