"BLEAK HOUSE"
Lesson 2: CHARLES DICKENS Chapter 1
You are to define and account for the impression a piece of fiction produces on you, analyzing
the author's selection of details, peculiarities of syntax and his method of creating imagery.
1. Look through the information and reproduce those parts of it which can be attributed to the chapter
under discussion.
"Bleak House" is a story of an endless Chancery suit intertwined with that of the main character's sin and
retribution. The satire on the law's delay was of practical value in exposing the need of reform. Never before or after did
Dickens picture more vividly the London streets, the quiet of the precincts of the law-courts, the horror of the city graveyards, the gruesome and degraded atmosphere of the old houses tainted with old crimes. Death broods over the sombre
story.
Some critics say that Dickens had a love for the fantastic in places, houses, objects and names. He renders
marvellously the sights, and sounds and smells of London - the fog, the drizzle, the slime, the dust, the crowded or empty
streets, picturing with equal authenticity the river, the water-side, the City, the law-courts, the West End, the suburbs. You
can't blame his descriptions on the ground that they are exaggerated representations of certain places as you can't blame a
gargoyle on the ground that it is an exaggerated representation of the human face. Dickens' descriptions are all of a piece.
He brings the realistic and the fantastic together in one piece of writing.
2. Reproduce a few short passages from the text to prove that certain parts of the above information may serve to
characterize the chapter. Explain which characteristics you wish to prove by each example.
"Bleak House" is a story of an endless Chancery suit intertwined with that of the main character's sin and retribution.
“Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man
alive knows what it means”. This quotation proves that Lord Chancellor doesn`t care about people who are being judged
judging. He isn`t interested in the result of the verdict. “The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that
no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises”.
So, they won`t solve the problem fairly. They just wait until the problem regulates itself.
3. When analysing "The Pickwick Papers", you singled out the meaning of the key words suggestive of the author's
conception. Which words have the same key-function in the chapter from "Bleak House", besides "fog",
which is too obvious an example? Select them and explain their relevance to the author's conception.
“Mud and mire” here also causes the associations with the long lawsuit. The councils are mired in this swamp and are
obsessed with the yawning.
“Innumerable” emphases that quite a lot of people who were seeking for justice were cheated by the council. The crowds
of them have been suffering from the lord`s decisions and still coming to the hall, hoping for the better. “Innumerable
children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died
out of it”.
4. When two things are similar even in one respect, it may be possible to refer to one of them by a word or longer
expression ordinarily applied to the other, i.e., transfer the word to a new application. A METAPHOR is a figure of
speech: the literal meaning is discarded and a new meaning is to be found. The new meaning, especially if it involves a
feeling, may be expressed in no other way as effectively, and that is the value of the metaphor. (e.g. "running their heads
against the walls of words".)
What metaphors did Dickens use to create his images? What similitude are they based on? What
associations do they bring?
I think that these descriptions of the foggy and gloomy London is a hidden metaphor. This muddy city causes the
associations with the court. All these lawsuits and lord`s affairs are a giant swamp where poor people are stucked forever.
“… in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor” this quote proves my thought.
5. Basically, a SYMBOL is a concrete object, animal, or movement, to which an abstract meaning attaches itself. Unlike a
separate metaphor, which serves to create a separate image, a symbol represents some of the meanings of the whole text.
So, a symbol may be regarded as a sort of GENERALIZED METAPHOR. But the indirect meaning of a metaphor leaps
to the eye at once, while the symbolic meaning of an object or action may become apparent much later, in the context of
the whole chapter or the whole work. In a metaphor, the word loses its literal meaning ("a wall of words" is not really a
wall), in a symbol it preserves both the literal meaning and acquires an additional one representing symbolically many
other things.
Is there anything symbolic in the chapter under discussion? What is the general meaning of the
symbol(s), if you have found any?
I suppose that the fog contains the symbolic meaning in this chapter. Fog means something unclear, something that was
hidden from the others. Here we can suppose that the truth and the justice were hidden from the poor people under the
documents of the boring councils. Unclearness and uncertainty will follow those who decided to fight for his rights.
Because it is better to tolerate any offense than to file a complaint with this court.
6. Even within the limitations of normal English word order, with all its restriction, there is a range of choice for the
disposition of parts. These possibilities are largely responsible for the changes of rhythm, balance, focus of attention,
accumulation, and climax.
Dickens was one of the first writers of English prose who made use of loose attribution and presented his material
to the imagination as a chain of images. His frequent use of verbless presentations (=nominative sentences) may account
for the fact that his writing seems rather impressionistic than realistic. But unlike those of the Impressionists, his image is
a single organized whole.
How do one-member sentences (i.e. nominative ones, without any verb: "Fog everywhere.", or those containing only
non-finite forms of the verb, like absolute constructions: "Fog lying out in the yards…") serve to organize the
structure of Dickens's imagery? (Show how some of the images are built by gradually adding more and
more details which help us to see, smell, feel, touch, which bring the fantastic image into life).
Such a technique Dickens uses describing the case about “Jarndyce and Jarndyce”. The author emphases the cruelty of the
court workers. They even admit their helplessness. The officials that were elected to judge people, who have power to
administer justice are laughed at this matter. “Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has
ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession”.
7. The chapter from "The Pickwick Papers" illustrates the author's panoramic vision of reality. He makes the reader's eye
travel from one object to another, now with a broad sweeping movement of the eye, now arresting the reader's attention on
minute details. We feel as if we were in the very midst of the crowd inundating the square on the day of the election. Due
to a number of technical devices Dickens creates a definite rhythm of the scene, which is very important in rendering his
message.
Can one speak of Dickens' panoramic vision of reality in reference to the chapter from "Bleak House'?
Explain, prove by examples.
I suppose that panoramic vision of reality also takes place in this novel. Firstly, the author takes us to the wet streets of
London, showing the dullness of November`s weather. He emphases some details, drawing the images of the muddy city,
irritated people and foggy Themes. Then he gradually proceeds to the description of the court, making a parallel between
the work of the councils and the weather. All these images consist the whole picture.
8. What would an artist depict on the cover of the chapter if it were published separately from the others?
If I were an artist I would depict the dull London with muddy streets and running clumsy people. And in the middle of my
picture would be the sinister building of the court, covered with thick fog.
9. The word "CHANCERY" has at least two absolutely different meanings. First, it means literally "Lord Chancellor's
Court, Division of High Court of Justice”. Second, "in chancery" figuratively means "in a predicament, that is, in a
difficult situation with practically no way out." Explain what made Dickens give this title to the opening chapter
of the book.
I think that here is an obvious explanation to this title. As I said before people who are visiting this chancery every day are
in a very poor situation. For many years they are waiting for any decision, hoping to solve their problems while the
workers make a joke from it. They are sitting and laughed at these strange people who come here every day.
10. Compare the chapter with the verse. What do they have in common?
A FENCE
Now the stone house on the lake in front is finished and the workmen are beginning the fence.
The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that can stab the life of any man who falls on them.
As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off the rabble and all vagabonds and hungry men and all wandering
children looking for a place to play.
Passing through the bars and over the steel points will go nothing except Death and the Rain and Tomorrow.
(Carl Sandburg)
I think that this verse is about prison. Prison is the next step after the court. It deprives people of joy, work, family and
future. Sometimes innocent people also pass through the fence and their previous life remains behind.
11. Paraphrase and reproduce in class with good pronunciation, intonation and enthusiasm.
Dickens's works are often always good; but the beginning of Bleak House differs in a quite new and striking sense. For
example, the first chapter about the genealogy of the Chuzzlewits. The first chapter of David Copperfield wonders the
reader by the unexpected exit of Miss Betsey Trotwood. But there is no a serious crisis in this novel, it`s just an eventful
biography. But the Bleak House is a more serious novel. The description of the fog in the first chapter of Bleak House and
the description of the wind in Martin Chuzzlewit are the proofs of the author`s mastery.
In this Bleak House beginning we know that the author sees the conclusion and the whole. He means that all the
characters and all the events must be seen through the smoky colours of that sinister and unnatural smog. (from Gilbert
Keith Chesterton “Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens”)
To Be Done In Class in pairs then report to the group.
1. Write an introduction to a more detailed analysis (the questions below may serve as a guide):
No writer is to assume that his readers are prepared to take excessive pains in order to discover his meaning. So he
should select those words that must clearly convey the meaning. Not that the reader may understand if he wishes to, but
that he must understand whether he wishes or not.
a) What is it that Dickens wants his readers to understand? (= What is the author’s message in the chapter under
analysis? You may formulate it as a statement, a question, a warning or a piece of advice).
The author wants to say that the high society is corrupted, the officials don`t care about people, they want to gain power
and money.
b) How does he make his readers understand it? (Is the landscape a determining factor in the chapter? What is the
impression produced by the landscape?)
The role of the landscape here is a key to the understanding of the main theme. It`s a hidden metaphor – the fog that
covers the truth.
2. What images are used in the chapter? What is the role of the central ones?
There are a lot of images of people and nature in this novel. The images of people are quite different, and of
course, the central one is the image of Lord High Chancellor. He is the connecting link between the symbols of
nature and the characters. His images gradually appears though the layer of thick fog. The Lord is like a God of
this gloomy city – he governs the fates and lives of the poor and helpless people.