On Courts and Law in Bleak House
The following is an essay written by C. Nicholas Walker, describing the symbolic use of courts and law in Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House.
IN MAY 1827, at the age of 15, Charles Dickens began work in the office of Ellis and Blackmore as a law clerk, a junior office position with potential to become a lawyer. He later became a court stenographer at the age of 17. Even though raised by a very poor family, the man who is now considered the greatest writer of his time was professionally begun in the courtrooms and offices of England. It is only natural, then, that he would find his way back to such a setting in his writings several years later, describing the ironies of the court, the loopholes and systemic anomalies that interwove themselves throughout the complex structure. And although it is often said that Dickens chose to write in such a way about the governing judicial system of the time as a satire, it should be noted that he had a passion for language, writing and law, and for its ability to eventually weed out right from wrong, good from bad. It is this passion that is now spoken of; the central theme to Bleak House is not that the legal system of written documents during the time was corrupt and constantly taken advantage of but, rather, that these things eventually worked themselves out, and that those who deserved to lose eventually did.
The opening chapter makes evident a social criticism and introduces what many assume is one of the book’s principal themes: The High Court of Chancery is “an institutionalized abuse of the law.” After several years of never-ending legal battles, the purpose for which the suit was placed forward has become lost in the battle itself—including court and lawyer fees—sucking dry the constituents of the inheritance money in question by the Jarndyces. The case has gone on for so many years that the cause is lost to the original effect, or stimulus. The law system is meant to produce clarity and justice, but instead it produces, just as Dickens devotes the first two paragraphs of his novel to it, a fog that obscures and creates confusion and depression in which people are lost. Gridley is one of these people, always bitter and for good reason: the delay of the Chancery Court has destroyed the inheritance that belonged to him and his brother, eventually driving him to suicide. Krook is an excellent representation of this in the novel. Krook’s rag-and-bottle shop is disordered and unproductive; in this way it seems to parallel the legal system in whole with the rest of society, in that—though they may be higher, more institutionalized governing systems—the Lord High Chancellor and the Chancery Courts are equally disordered and unproductive. Mr. Krook’s shop, however, takes on full the brunt of public condemnation by the government and the aristocratic population as a whole, they themselves never understanding fully that they are under control by an equally ineffectual organization. This is certainly not where the theme of Chancery’s corruption ends, however. Dickens goes even further with the personal representations of Miss Flite, pitiable and driven half mad by the ongoing Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit, and Tom Jarndyce himself, whose failed drive to suicide spawns itself from the very same corrupt system.
The importance of written documents within the plot itself—their purposes, significance and inadequacies—is a smaller attribute, although a good physical representation, to this same theme. The whole plot of Bleak House revolves around two important documents: the handwritten letter which Lady Dedlock becomes so very obsessed about throughout the massive novel, written by the ethereal “Nemo” but in reality from the fingers of Captain Hawdon, and the equivocal lost will that could solve the case that has been pinning down the Chancery Courts for the entirety of the novel. Written documents as a whole, both in the legal and personal settings, prove to be rather futile and meaningless; in Chapter 9, Mr. Jarndyce writes to one of Richard’s distant relatives, Sir Leicester Dedlock, but all prospects of help from him are fruitless. This may be seen as a higher theme in and of itself, but in reality its only purpose by Dickens is to reinforce his higher argument: in the world of morality and reality, papers and documents mean nothing and acquire nothing for oneself.
Dickens does a very good job of contrasting the social criticism of Chancery with the truths of personal experience. Although the main theme in the novel is the infinite corruption of Chancery Courts, it is defined throughout the plot by self-serving lawyers like Mr. Tulkinghorn. Interwoven into this, however, is a strengthening theme of people who might be well intentioned but who neglect their homes and families in order to be philanthropic and charitable to distant people about whom they know little or nothing about. Again, this is not a theme in and of itself, but moreover a defining theme which strengthens the first. For instance, the main character in all of Bleak House and about whom the main plot revolves, Esther Summerson, is affected in no way by the Chancery Courts or the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Dickens separates her from all this for good reason: the story is not about the inimitable corruption of the Law in Chancery, but about the personal revelations of those deserving to “make it through” and live happy, fulfilling lives in spite of it. Through her relations with Lady Dedlock, John Jarndyce, Allan Wood-court and others, we see that a happy ending in spite of the corrupt evil of the courts—in spite, as well, of the inadequacies of paper and written documents—is only inevitable for those deserving of it. The ending implies that although the evil of the world is formidable, happiness remains a possibility, perhaps even a likelihood, especially for those who are both pure of heart and responsibly persevering. We begin to see that, though Dickens is obviously criticizing the Chancery Courts, he is only more so balancing this out with the personal perseverance that the good characters use to surpass such unsurpassable evil, including personal romances. Although the Chancery Courts do constitute a major evil, this larger issue is implicated. Chancery itself—encompassing, even, the idea of Law throughout the entire world—is also a symbol. Similarly, the fog is a symbol of Chancery and also of all similarly useless institutions and operations. This is the “dead hand” of custom and tradition that Dickens usually spends his novels adhering to and complimenting. In Bleak House, however, Dickens takes the approach of condemning the past in this nature while also showing that personal experience can permeate it. Scholars believe the point has never been better made than by Edgar Johnson in Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph (1952), which remains the best-selling of all biographies of Dickens, who writes:
“Both law and fog are fundamentally symbols of all the ponderous and murky forces that suffocate the creative energies of mankind. They prefigure in darkness visible the entanglements of vested interests and institutions and archaic traditions protecting greed, fettering generous action, obstructing men’s movements, and beclouding their vision.”
A writer’s main goal in a novel is to make the reader feel the theme instead of simply stating it or showing it to the reader. The only way to do that is to show the personal aspects of these larger atrocities. Dickens succeeds in this by defining the ultimate theme, the destructive heaviness of the dead hand, by just what it takes to overcome it; this success is proven by the fact that Bleak House is still being read and studied a century and a half after it was written.
Proving this theorem even more, and experienced by some readers as a weakness in the novel, is that Lady Dedlock’s domination of the book is not matched by her connection with the story's main theme. Were we to assume that the corrupt Chancery Courts in reality was Dickens’ most important theme, he should probably have made Lady Dedlock’s misfortunes the direct result of some aspect of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce court case or, in any event, of some action or inaction of the Chancery court. It can be argued that Tulkinghorn is a representation of the Chancery Courts and their all-encompassing corruption, but he isn't restricted to that court, and we all know that egocentric lawyers are found everywhere, whether the higher governing law is corrupt or not. As a matter of fact, when dealing with the Nemo papers that began Lady Dedlock’s intricate quest for truth, we see that it is a mere accident that she noticed them laid across the table by Mr. Tulkinghorn in the first place, an event which subsequently commences her ruin. In looking into this, we see that the initiated situation which begins Lady Dedlock’s conflicts throughout Bleak House are not caused by any outside evil of either personal lawyers or the whole corruption of law in itself. Even the ongoing Jarndyce and Jarndyce case affects her just as little as it does Esther, as she is in no way dependent on the outcome of that suit. We therefore see that if Lady Dedlock dominates the story she must also, in some way, dominate the real main theme, that personal betterment or destruction are equally a cause of one’s own actions and beliefs, and not those of the governing law.
In the end, Dickens’ foreshadowing is proven, as is the thesis for this paper. Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes to nothing. All those deserving to pay for their persistent folly do, and all those deserving to live happy and fulfilling lives centered around those closest to them, such as Sir Leicester and his devotion to Lady Dedlock, live said lives as well. By the end of Bleak House, Chesney Wold is changed. No longer the fog ridden world of corruption, Dickens now can describe the world as light and full of colors, the seasons melting over the land. We can understand that there is certainly and without denial a cynicism of Law and order in Dickens’ novel, but more so it should be reiterated that he had a passion for language and writing and for its ability to eventually weed out right from wrong, good from bad, beginning with his chosen profession as a law clerk. It is this passion that has now been proven; the central theme to Bleak House is not the corruption of Chancery, Law and of the world, or of it constantly being taken advantage of. Rather, the central theme is that these things eventually work themselves out without the need for papers or documents or law in general, and that those who deserve to win and prosper—including Esther, Ada, Allan, and Mr. Jarndyce—eventually do.
IN MAY 1827, at the age of 15, Charles Dickens began work in the office of Ellis and Blackmore as a law clerk, a junior office position with potential to become a lawyer. He later became a court stenographer at the age of 17. Even though raised by a very poor family, the man who is now considered the greatest writer of his time was professionally begun in the courtrooms and offices of England. It is only natural, then, that he would find his way back to such a setting in his writings several years later, describing the ironies of the court, the loopholes and systemic anomalies that interwove themselves throughout the complex structure. And although it is often said that Dickens chose to write in such a way about the governing judicial system of the time as a satire, it should be noted that he had a passion for language, writing and law, and for its ability to eventually weed out right from wrong, good from bad. It is this passion that is now spoken of; the central theme to Bleak House is not that the legal system of written documents during the time was corrupt and constantly taken advantage of but, rather, that these things eventually worked themselves out, and that those who deserved to lose eventually did.
The opening chapter makes evident a social criticism and introduces what many assume is one of the book’s principal themes: The High Court of Chancery is “an institutionalized abuse of the law.” After several years of never-ending legal battles, the purpose for which the suit was placed forward has become lost in the battle itself—including court and lawyer fees—sucking dry the constituents of the inheritance money in question by the Jarndyces. The case has gone on for so many years that the cause is lost to the original effect, or stimulus. The law system is meant to produce clarity and justice, but instead it produces, just as Dickens devotes the first two paragraphs of his novel to it, a fog that obscures and creates confusion and depression in which people are lost. Gridley is one of these people, always bitter and for good reason: the delay of the Chancery Court has destroyed the inheritance that belonged to him and his brother, eventually driving him to suicide. Krook is an excellent representation of this in the novel. Krook’s rag-and-bottle shop is disordered and unproductive; in this way it seems to parallel the legal system in whole with the rest of society, in that—though they may be higher, more institutionalized governing systems—the Lord High Chancellor and the Chancery Courts are equally disordered and unproductive. Mr. Krook’s shop, however, takes on full the brunt of public condemnation by the government and the aristocratic population as a whole, they themselves never understanding fully that they are under control by an equally ineffectual organization. This is certainly not where the theme of Chancery’s corruption ends, however. Dickens goes even further with the personal representations of Miss Flite, pitiable and driven half mad by the ongoing Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit, and Tom Jarndyce himself, whose failed drive to suicide spawns itself from the very same corrupt system.
The importance of written documents within the plot itself—their purposes, significance and inadequacies—is a smaller attribute, although a good physical representation, to this same theme. The whole plot of Bleak House revolves around two important documents: the handwritten letter which Lady Dedlock becomes so very obsessed about throughout the massive novel, written by the ethereal “Nemo” but in reality from the fingers of Captain Hawdon, and the equivocal lost will that could solve the case that has been pinning down the Chancery Courts for the entirety of the novel. Written documents as a whole, both in the legal and personal settings, prove to be rather futile and meaningless; in Chapter 9, Mr. Jarndyce writes to one of Richard’s distant relatives, Sir Leicester Dedlock, but all prospects of help from him are fruitless. This may be seen as a higher theme in and of itself, but in reality its only purpose by Dickens is to reinforce his higher argument: in the world of morality and reality, papers and documents mean nothing and acquire nothing for oneself.
Dickens does a very good job of contrasting the social criticism of Chancery with the truths of personal experience. Although the main theme in the novel is the infinite corruption of Chancery Courts, it is defined throughout the plot by self-serving lawyers like Mr. Tulkinghorn. Interwoven into this, however, is a strengthening theme of people who might be well intentioned but who neglect their homes and families in order to be philanthropic and charitable to distant people about whom they know little or nothing about. Again, this is not a theme in and of itself, but moreover a defining theme which strengthens the first. For instance, the main character in all of Bleak House and about whom the main plot revolves, Esther Summerson, is affected in no way by the Chancery Courts or the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit. Dickens separates her from all this for good reason: the story is not about the inimitable corruption of the Law in Chancery, but about the personal revelations of those deserving to “make it through” and live happy, fulfilling lives in spite of it. Through her relations with Lady Dedlock, John Jarndyce, Allan Wood-court and others, we see that a happy ending in spite of the corrupt evil of the courts—in spite, as well, of the inadequacies of paper and written documents—is only inevitable for those deserving of it. The ending implies that although the evil of the world is formidable, happiness remains a possibility, perhaps even a likelihood, especially for those who are both pure of heart and responsibly persevering. We begin to see that, though Dickens is obviously criticizing the Chancery Courts, he is only more so balancing this out with the personal perseverance that the good characters use to surpass such unsurpassable evil, including personal romances. Although the Chancery Courts do constitute a major evil, this larger issue is implicated. Chancery itself—encompassing, even, the idea of Law throughout the entire world—is also a symbol. Similarly, the fog is a symbol of Chancery and also of all similarly useless institutions and operations. This is the “dead hand” of custom and tradition that Dickens usually spends his novels adhering to and complimenting. In Bleak House, however, Dickens takes the approach of condemning the past in this nature while also showing that personal experience can permeate it. Scholars believe the point has never been better made than by Edgar Johnson in Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph (1952), which remains the best-selling of all biographies of Dickens, who writes:
“Both law and fog are fundamentally symbols of all the ponderous and murky forces that suffocate the creative energies of mankind. They prefigure in darkness visible the entanglements of vested interests and institutions and archaic traditions protecting greed, fettering generous action, obstructing men’s movements, and beclouding their vision.”
A writer’s main goal in a novel is to make the reader feel the theme instead of simply stating it or showing it to the reader. The only way to do that is to show the personal aspects of these larger atrocities. Dickens succeeds in this by defining the ultimate theme, the destructive heaviness of the dead hand, by just what it takes to overcome it; this success is proven by the fact that Bleak House is still being read and studied a century and a half after it was written.
Proving this theorem even more, and experienced by some readers as a weakness in the novel, is that Lady Dedlock’s domination of the book is not matched by her connection with the story's main theme. Were we to assume that the corrupt Chancery Courts in reality was Dickens’ most important theme, he should probably have made Lady Dedlock’s misfortunes the direct result of some aspect of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce court case or, in any event, of some action or inaction of the Chancery court. It can be argued that Tulkinghorn is a representation of the Chancery Courts and their all-encompassing corruption, but he isn't restricted to that court, and we all know that egocentric lawyers are found everywhere, whether the higher governing law is corrupt or not. As a matter of fact, when dealing with the Nemo papers that began Lady Dedlock’s intricate quest for truth, we see that it is a mere accident that she noticed them laid across the table by Mr. Tulkinghorn in the first place, an event which subsequently commences her ruin. In looking into this, we see that the initiated situation which begins Lady Dedlock’s conflicts throughout Bleak House are not caused by any outside evil of either personal lawyers or the whole corruption of law in itself. Even the ongoing Jarndyce and Jarndyce case affects her just as little as it does Esther, as she is in no way dependent on the outcome of that suit. We therefore see that if Lady Dedlock dominates the story she must also, in some way, dominate the real main theme, that personal betterment or destruction are equally a cause of one’s own actions and beliefs, and not those of the governing law.
In the end, Dickens’ foreshadowing is proven, as is the thesis for this paper. Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes to nothing. All those deserving to pay for their persistent folly do, and all those deserving to live happy and fulfilling lives centered around those closest to them, such as Sir Leicester and his devotion to Lady Dedlock, live said lives as well. By the end of Bleak House, Chesney Wold is changed. No longer the fog ridden world of corruption, Dickens now can describe the world as light and full of colors, the seasons melting over the land. We can understand that there is certainly and without denial a cynicism of Law and order in Dickens’ novel, but more so it should be reiterated that he had a passion for language and writing and for its ability to eventually weed out right from wrong, good from bad, beginning with his chosen profession as a law clerk. It is this passion that has now been proven; the central theme to Bleak House is not the corruption of Chancery, Law and of the world, or of it constantly being taken advantage of. Rather, the central theme is that these things eventually work themselves out without the need for papers or documents or law in general, and that those who deserve to win and prosper—including Esther, Ada, Allan, and Mr. Jarndyce—eventually do.
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