79 pages • 2 hours read
Bleak House
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Themes
Parenthood and Responsibility
Parenthood is an enduring bond that shapes the lives of characters. However, parents need not be genetically related to their children or wards to act as responsible guardians. Figures such as Lady Dedlock, Jarndyce, and even Captain Hawdon occupy the roles that parents might play in the lives of those who have tragically lost their actual parents. For example, Lady Dedlock is forlorn at the loss of her daughter, and she takes Rosa into her care to vicariously experience parenthood by taking on the responsibility for another person. Jarndyce is similar, in that he feels a sense of responsibility for the orphans who are affected by the legal case that bears his name, leading him to bring Richard and Ada into his home. Captain Hawdon loses a daughter and a lover but does everything he can to care for the orphan Jo. By taking responsibility for those who are helpless or at risk, these characters demonstrate the extent to which parenthood is a social rather than a genetic concern.
In the instances where parental figures cannot satisfy the terms of their social responsibility, tragedy strikes. Jarndyce’s tragedy is particularly pronounced, as he spends the first half of the novel warning Richard not to obsess over the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Jarndyce himself has washed his hands of the case and refuses to indulge the absurdity of the legal system. As a parental figure, however, Jarndyce feels a sense of responsibility. Keeping himself free from the case is not enough: He must encourage his young wards to similarly avoid temptation. Jarndyce is half-successful. Ada accepts his advice, but Richard ignores him to the point of severing their relationship. Jarndyce’s feeling of responsibility toward Richard endures even after Richard breaks contact; in fact, he blames himself for not saving Richard.
Parent-child responsibility is bilateral. Esther keeps her mother, Lady Dedlock’s, secret out of a sense of social responsibility. Similarly, George deliberately ostracizes himself from his family because he views himself as a failure. He does not understand that Mrs. Rouncewell’s love endures, so he separates himself from his mother and brother because he believes that this is the only responsible course of action. The children of Bleak House recognize the responsibility of their parents toward them and wish to return this responsibility in kind. In the case of Esther and George, doing so ironically (and tragically) robs them of time they might have spent with their loved ones.
Justice Versus Law
A complicated legal case is at the heart of Bleak House. The Jarndyce and Jarndyce case has occupied the Court of Chancery for decades as legal advisors and lawyers argue about the provenance of two competing wills—a process the novel frames as an absurd train of bureaucracy and technical administration. This portrayal of one of the most important courts in England draws a distinction between justice and law. The court oversees law, but it may not oversee justice; just because a cadre of legal advisors and lawyers are pursuing a decision does not mean that the decision is moral or right. Instead, the portrayal of the court is a deliberately absurd satire of a legal system that obsesses over itself without providing any help or justice to the people it is supposed to serve. People like Miss Flite have become so invested in the pomp and ceremony of the court—rather than any actual idea of justice—that she has turned Jarndyce and Jarndyce into a religious spectacle. The courts are vestigial, self-perpetuating public performances of law that never achieve anything which might be credibly named justice.
Criminal law fares little better. George is wrongfully arrested for Tulkinghorn’s murder and told that merely explaining the truth of his innocence will not be enough to save him; he needs a lawyer to navigate the bureaucratic system. However, George feels he deserved to be punished for failing to live up to his brother’s achievements, and his arrest presents him with an opportunity for just this. When his mother comes to plead with him, he describes his situation as his “reward” for how he has lived his life. Furthermore, he objects to securing the services of a lawyer who will probably not believe in his innocence; like Jo, George is likely to be considered guilty simply by virtue of his relatively low status in society. Eventually, George is freed from the prison and returns to his family, the brief brush with (what he sees as) divine justice enough to encourage him to repair the mistakes of his life. Justice is served in a roundabout way, completely separate from the law and legal institutions.
Eventually, the Court of Chancery reaches a decision, ruling in Richard’s favor only to reveal that all the money has been spent on legal fees. In a legal sense, justice has been done. In a moral sense, the only benefactors of the will are the lawyers and legal advisors who have been handsomely paid to argue the case back and forth for decades. Furthermore, their arguments meant nothing, as the case was only settled by the discovery of a third will, rendering the decades of debate irrelevant. Richard loses everything, including his life. In the end, the system exists only to perpetuate the wealth and importance of its representatives.
The Search for Love and the Dangers of Passion
Romantic love, familial love, and platonic love shape Bleak House’s characters’ lives. The quest for love takes many forms. Esther grows up in an environment where love is hard to find. She wants to be loved, but she only truly knows how to care for others. Whether taking care of Peepy or running Bleak House, her search for romantic love is sidelined because she always puts others first. Her budding romance with Woodcourt is cut short when she is left scarred by an illness; she does not want to “punish” the doctor by forcing him to continue to love her when she looks completely different. She does not realize that Woodcourt loves her not for her looks, but for her kindness. Esther’s narration mirrors her attitude. When Woodcourt is first mentioned, she demurely shies away from him, unwilling to center her emotions in her own narrative even in retrospect (i.e., knowing that she would go on to marry Woodcourt).
Lady Dedlock’s tragic demise embodies the search for familial love. She spends years believing that her daughter is dead and presenting herself as distant, emotionless, and frequently bored. Her performance earns her respect, if not love. Meanwhile, grief for her lost daughter burns inside her and causes her constant pain. Lady Dedlock is forced to search for a vicarious way in which she can express her parental love. She finds this figure in Rosa, whom she takes under her wing. Like everything in Lady Dedlock’s life, however, she must ultimately abandon Rosa for the sake of protecting her husband. Ultimately, she completely abandons any pretense and goes to die on the grave of her dead lover. Lady Dedlock returns to the source of her romantic and parental passion, reuniting with the father of her child. She wants only to love again, so she searches out her original sin of passion and dies on her lover’s grave.
Platonic love in Bleak House is less intense but no less vital. The best example of this is the enduring relationship between Esther and Ada. The two women meet when they are young and go through a great deal together. Even when they are physically apart, Esther longs to be with her best friend They share everything, right up until the moment when they feel they cannot. After years of knowing everything about one another, they each harbor a secret. Ada secretly marries Richard and Esther accepts Jarndyce’s proposal. Neither of these arrangements ends in a long and happy marriage, but the more pressing issue is the psychological pain it causes the friends to hide something from each other. Nevertheless, the friendship is durable enough to survive this secrecy. Their compassion for one another is such that it helps guide them through personal tragedies, especially those concerning parental and romantic love.
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