"Bleak House"
“Bleak House” is one of those rare cases when a journalistically sensitive response to the topic of the day was perfectly consistent with the artistic concept of the novel, although, as is often the case with Dickens, the action is pushed back several decades. The Chancery Court, the reform of which was much talked about in the early fifties (by the way, it was delayed for a long time by government corruption and routine, which, according to Dickens, were a direct consequence of the then two-party system) - the Chancery Court became the organizing center of the novel, attacking the vices of the social system as a whole. . Dickens became acquainted with the “delights” of the Court of Chancery in his youth, when he worked in a law office, and in the “Pickwick Club” he furiously criticized its monstrous red tape, telling the story of the “Chancellor’s prisoner.” Perhaps he became interested in him again under the influence of newspaper hype.
Having developed an impressive picture of society, Dickens will probably score an even more brilliant victory when he never lets the reader forget for a moment that this very network is established vertically: at the top sits the Lord Chancellor on a woolen cushion, and in his Lincolnshire estate Sir Leicester Dedlock whiles away his days , the foundation of the cumbersome structure rests on suffering, it presses on the fragile and unwashed shoulders of the street sweeper Joe, a sick and illiterate ragamuffin. Retribution is not long in coming, and the fetid breath of the Lonely Tom flophouse, where the same outcasts vegetate along with Joe, breaks into the cozy nests of the middle class and does not spare the most domestic virtue. Dickens' exemplary heroine Hester, for example, contracts smallpox from Joe. In the first chapter of the book, London and the Court of Chancery are shrouded in fog, the second chapter takes you to a rain-flooded, overcast Chesney Wold, to a stately country house where the fate of the government cabinet is being decided. However, the indictment handed down to the society is not without nuances. The Lord Chancellor, for example, is a benevolent gentleman - he is attentive to Miss Flight, whom judicial delays have driven to insanity, and talks in a fatherly manner with the “Chancellor’s wards” Ada and Richard. Firm, stubborn in his delusions, Sir Leicester Dedlock 1 nevertheless belongs to one of the most sympathetic characters of Dickens: he generously cares for everyone who directly depends on him, remains chivalrously faithful to his beautiful wife when her dishonor is revealed - there is something in this something even romantic. And is it finally necessary to destroy the Court of Chancery and correct the system that Sir Leicester considers God-given to England? Who will feed the elderly father of Mr. Vholes and his three daughters if Vholes loses the opportunity to send Richard Carston around the world with fees and court fees? And what will happen to the pathetic wreck, a fragment of the Regency, cousin Volumnia, with her necklace and baby talk, if her benefactor Sir Leicester loses his right to determine the fate of the country?
Without ever expressing this directly, Dickens makes it clear that a society that allowed Joe to die from hunger and loneliness is doubly disgusting, throwing a piece to others who are equally unfortunate. Here, of course, Dickens's aversion to patronage and dependence that define relationships between people was expressed: he knew what it was like from his own family, especially in the last fifteen years of his life. To say that the Court of Chancery and Chesney Wold symbolize fog and dampness would not be correct, since such vague, vague symbols immediately come to mind as the sea in Dombey and Son or the river in Our Mutual Friend. The great thing is that both the Court of Chancery and the fog together symbolize England, but they also exist on their own. The composition, symbolism, narration in Bleak House - in short, everything, with the possible exception of the plot, is artistically convincing, since their complexity does not negate the simple and clear logic of the action. So, the found will puts an end to the Jarndyces’ litigation and brings nothing to anyone - everything was eaten up by legal costs; the shame and death of his wife plunges the proud world of Sir Leicester into dust; After “spontaneous combustion,” the alcoholic Crook, a buyer of junk and scrap iron, his “Lord Chancellor” in a world of rags, hunger and plague, will leave a pile of charred bones and a spot of thick yellow liquid after “spontaneous combustion.” A society rotten from top to bottom comes full circle on the pages of this amazing novel.
This is not the place to dwell in detail on the long and diverse list of dramatis personae 2 novels, let’s just say that, as a rule, selfish and therefore vulgar heroes are drawn to their own kind, withdraw into small groups, neglecting their family and people dependent on them - but also The ruling classes of England also behaved towards the people. Mr. Turveydrop, fat man and living memory about the time of the Prince Regent, thinks only of his manners; Grandfather Smallweed and his grandchildren, who did not know childhood, think only about profit; the traveling preacher Mr. Chadband thinks only of his voice; Mrs. Pardiggle, who encourages her children to use their pocket money only for good deeds, thinks of herself as an ascetic when she delivers church tracts to houses where they sit without bread; Mrs. Jellyby, who has completely abandoned her children, becomes disillusioned with missionary work in Africa and joins the fight for women's rights (in the face of glaring public disaster and missionary work, and these rights drove Dickens mad). And finally, Mr. Skimpole never tires of artlessly blurting out his own opinion about himself, this charming little fellow, not a fool to live at the expense of others and with a sharp tongue. All of them, like children, selflessly indulge in their trifles, and hunger and disease pass by, without attracting their attention.
As for Joe. embodied symbol of sacrifice, then this image, I think, deserves the highest praise. Neither ponderous pathos, nor even the undramatic recitation of “Our Father” on his deathbed can weaken the impression that Joe, fearful and stupid, like a young animal, left behind - an abandoned, downtrodden, hunted creature. Dickens's image of an abandoned and homeless child received its fullest expression in the case of Joe. There is nothing sublime or romantic in the image of Joe; Dickens does not “play along” with him at all, except to hint that natural decency triumphs over evil and immorality. In a book that pointedly denies virtue to savage Africans, Joe (like Hugh the groom in Barnaby Rudge) is the only tribute to the traditional image of the noble savage. Dickens's compassion for the poor was most clearly expressed in the scene where Goose, an orphan servant in the Snagsby house (that is, the last person in Victorian life), amazed and sympathetic, observes the scene of Joe's interrogation: she looked into a life even more hopeless; poor people always come to each other's aid, and the kind-hearted Goose gives Joe her dinner:
“Here you go, eat it, poor boy,” says Gusya.
“Thank you very much, ma’am,” says Joe.
- Perhaps you want to eat?
- Still would! - Joe answers.
“Where did your father and mother go, huh?”
Joe stops chewing and stands still. After all, Goose, this orphan, the pet of a Christian saint, whose temple is in Tooting, stroked Joe on the shoulder - for the first time in his life he felt that the hand of a decent person had touched him.
“I don’t know anything about them,” says Joe.
- I don’t know about mine either! - exclaims Gusya.”
“Poor little boy” in Gusya’s mouth sounds almost “lordly,” and this alone convinces me that Dickens was able to convey high pathos and deep feeling, maintaining a mischievous smile on his face and without falling into sentimentality.
Most readers of Bleak House today will probably disagree with my assessment of the novel because it ignores what they consider the novel's main flaw—the character of the heroine, Esther Summerson. Esther is an orphan, only from the middle of the book we learn that she is the illegitimate daughter of Milady Dedlock. Taken under the guardianship of Mr. Jarndyce, she lives with him with his other charges.
Dickens took a bold step by taking Esther as a co-author - half of the book was written on her behalf. This decision seems to me very reasonable - after all, this is the only way the reader can enter the life of victims broken by society; but in other chapters, where the author narrates the story, he will see in its entirety a system of bullying and persecution 3 . Esther is a decisive and courageous heroine, which is especially convincing in her search for her mother when Milady’s secret has already been revealed - by the way, these scenes belong to Dickens’s best depictions of the dynamics of action; Hester has the courage to tell Mr. Skimpole and Mr. Vholes to their faces what worthless people they are - for Dickens’s timid and feminine heroine this means something. Unfortunately, Dickens fears that we ourselves will not be able to appreciate Esther’s virtues, which, naturally, are homeliness, thrift and intelligence, and therefore makes her, impossibly embarrassed, repeat for us all the praise lavished on her. This deficiency may be characteristic of sensible girls, but in order to be consistent with the Dickensian ideal of femininity, a girl should be modest in every word.
The inability and unwillingness to understand female psychology turns into another shortcoming, and much more serious: according to the logic of the novel, the Jarndyce litigation ruins everyone who is involved in it, but the logic also turns out to be overturned, as soon as we learn that my lady’s shameful offense and her role as plaintiff in the process are not at all related to each other. This is all the more striking when the crazy petitioner Miss Flight tells how her sister went down a bad path: the family got involved in legal red tape, became poor, and then completely fell apart. But Miss Flyte’s sister is not in the novel, and her fall from grace is spoken of mutely; Milady Dedlock’s guilt forms the central intrigue of the novel - but Milady is beautiful; and Dickens demonstrates complete deafness to the nature of women, resolutely refusing to analyze the annoying stain on my lady’s past or even really explain how it all happened - no matter that the book rests on this secret. But let’s not be too picky: Esther is much prettier and livelier than the eternal busybody Ruth Pinch; and Milady Dedlock, having lost her boring and unapproachable decorum, is a much more vital character than the other proud and beautiful woman, Edith Dombey. Even Dickens's Achilles heel does not seem to be so vulnerable in this merciless sentencing novel.
However, what is salvation, according to Dickens? By the end of the novel, several positive individuals and communities are selected. The great thing here is Mr. Rouncewell and everything that stands behind him. This is an “iron master” from Yorkshire who made his way in life on his own, where factories and forges noisily and joyfully shout about the prosperous world of work and progress, sing a song of departure for the decrepit world of Chesney Wold with its paralyzed owner. Esther goes to Yorkshire with her husband, Allen Woodcourt; he brings to people the hands and heart of a doctor - this is tangible help, not like the vague philanthropy in Dickens's early novels.
And isn’t it ironic that the proactive industrial North, an outpost of English capital in Victorian era, took another crushing blow from Dickens? In 1854 the novel “ Hard times».
After finishing the publication of Bleak House, Dickens, in the company of his young friends, Wilkie Collins and the artist Egg, left for Italy. It was pleasant to take a break from England, work, family, although his young companions sometimes irritated him, which was partly to blame for their modest means, which, of course, prevented them from keeping up with Dickens everywhere.
Returning to England, he made his first contribution to the cause of the coming decade by organizing real paid public readings in Birmingham; Proceeds from the performances went to benefit the Birmingham and Midlands Institute. His wife and sister-in-law were present at all three readings, which were a huge success. However, for the time being, he ignores the surging stream of invitations. It is difficult to say how much longer the respite from work that promised depression would have lasted if the falling demand for Home Reading had not forced Dickens to take up new novel, or rather, would not hasten him with a monthly tribute, since the idea of a new work had already matured. Perhaps his recent trip to Birmingham had awakened in his soul the horror of the blast furnaces of the Midlands, which was first expressed with such force in the nightmarish vision of the hellish furnaces and the maddened, murmuring people in the "Antiquities Shop". A journalist, agitated by the twenty-three-week strike and lockout at the cotton mills in Preston, came to the artist’s aid - in January 1854, Dickens traveled to Lancashire to witness the battle between factory owners and workers. Already in April, the first issue of the novel “Hard Times” is published. The success of the novel returned Home Reading to its glory and material prosperity.
Notes
1. ... the stubborn Sir Leicester Dedlock— Deadlock (“dead-lock”) means “stagnation”, “deadlock”. As in most cases, the name of Dickens's hero is at the same time a means of characterizing him.
2. Characters ( lat.).
3....bullying and harassment— the opinion of many Dickensian critics is probably not without foundation that he owed his new compositional technique (conducting a story on behalf of different persons) to the technique of the detective novel, in the genre of which his young friend Wilkie Collins worked so successfully. In a 20th century novel. changing plans is no longer a new thing (D. Joyce, W. Faulkner).
4. ...at all three readings...his wife and sister-in-law were present- the first public reading took place at Birmingham City Hall on December 27, 1853; Dickens read A Christmas Carol.
Charles Dickens
BREAK HOUSE
Preface
Once, in my presence, one of the Chancery judges kindly explained to a society of about one hundred and fifty people, whom no one suspected of dementia, that although prejudice against the Chancery Court is very widespread (here the judge seemed to glance sideways in my direction), this court almost flawless in fact. True, he admitted that the Court of Chancery had some minor mistakes - one or two throughout its entire activity, but they were not as great as they say, and if they happened, it was only because of “the stinginess of society” : for this evil society, until very recently, resolutely refused to increase the number of judges in the Court of Chancery, established - if I am not mistaken - by Richard the Second, and, however, it does not matter which king.
These words seemed to me a joke, and if it had not been so ponderous, I would have ventured to include it in this book and put it in the mouth of Eloquent Kenge or Mr. Vholes, since it was probably either one or the other who invented it. They might even include a suitable quote from Shakespeare's sonnet:
The dyer cannot hide his craft,
So damn busy for me
It became an indelible seal.
Oh, help me wash away my curse!
But it is useful for a stingy society to know what exactly happened and is still happening in the judicial world, so I declare that everything written on these pages about the Court of Chancery is the real truth and does not sin against the truth. In presenting the Gridley case, I have only recounted, without changing anything of substance, the story of one true incident, published by an impartial person, who, by the nature of his occupation, had the opportunity of observing this monstrous abuse from the very beginning to the end. There is currently a lawsuit going on in court that started almost twenty years ago; in which sometimes from thirty to forty lawyers appeared at the same time; which had already cost seventy thousand pounds in court fees; which is a friendly suit, and which (as I am assured) is no nearer the end now than the day it began. Another famous litigation is being tried in the Court of Chancery, still unresolved, and it began at the end of the last century and absorbed in the form of court fees not seventy thousand pounds, but more than twice as much. If further evidence were needed that litigation like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce exists, I could provide it in abundance in these pages to the shame of... a stingy society.
There is one more circumstance that I want to briefly mention. Ever since the day Mr. Crook died, certain persons have denied that so-called spontaneous combustion is possible; after Crook's death was described, my good friend, Mr. Lewis (who quickly became convinced that he was deeply mistaken in believing that specialists had already stopped studying this phenomenon), published several witty letters to me, in which he argued that spontaneous combustion could not happen Maybe. I should note that I do not mislead my readers either intentionally or through negligence and, before writing about spontaneous combustion, I tried to study this issue. About thirty cases of spontaneous combustion are known, and the most famous of them, which happened to Countess Cornelia de Baidi Cesenate, was carefully studied and described by the Verona prebendary Giuseppe Bianchini, a famous writer who published an article about this case in 1731 in Verona and later, in the second edition, in Rome. The circumstances of the Countess's death are beyond reasonable doubt and are very similar to the circumstances of Mr. Crook's death. The second most famous incident of this kind is one that took place at Reims six years earlier and was described by Dr. Le Ca, one of the most famous surgeons in France. This time, a woman died whose husband, through a misunderstanding, was accused of her murder, but was acquitted after he filed a well-reasoned appeal to a higher authority, since witness testimony irrefutably proved that death was caused by spontaneous combustion. I do not think it necessary to add to these significant facts and those general references to the authority of specialists which are given in Chapter XXXIII, the opinions and studies of famous medical professors, French, English and Scottish, published in more late time; I will only note that I will not refuse to recognize these facts until there is a thorough “spontaneous combustion” of the evidence on which judgments about incidents with people are based.
In Bleak House, I deliberately emphasized the romantic side of everyday life.
In the Chancery Court
London. The autumn session of the court - the Michaelmas Session - has recently begun, and the Lord Chancellor is seated at Lincoln's Inn Hall. Unbearable November weather. The streets are as slushy as if the waters of a flood had just subsided from the face of the earth, and if a megalosaurus forty feet long appeared on Holborn Hill, trailing like an elephant-like lizard, no one would be surprised. The smoke spreads as soon as it rises from the chimneys, it is like a fine black drizzle, and it seems that the soot flakes are large snow flakes, wearing mourning for the dead sun. The dogs are so covered in mud that you can’t even see them. The horses are hardly better - they are splashed up to their eyecups. Pedestrians, completely irritable, poke each other with umbrellas and lose their balance at intersections where, since dawn (if it was dawn that day), tens of thousands of other pedestrians have stumbled and slipped, adding new contributions to the already accumulated - layer on layer - dirt, which in these places tenaciously sticks to the pavement, growing like compound interest.
Fog is everywhere. Fog in the upper Thames, where it floats over green islets and meadows; the fog in the lower reaches of the Thames, where it, having lost its purity, swirls between the forest of masts and the coastal refuse of a large (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex Moors, fog on the Kentish Highlands. Fog creeps into the galleys of the coal brigs; the fog lies on the yards and floats through the rigging large ships; fog settles on the sides of barges and boats. The fog blinds the eyes and clogs the throats of the elderly Greenwich pensioners wheezing by the fireplaces in the nursing home; the fog has penetrated the chibouk and the head of the pipe, which the angry skipper, holed up in his cramped cabin, smokes after dinner; the fog cruelly pinches the fingers and toes of his little cabin boy, trembling on the deck. On the bridges some people, leaning over the railings, look into the foggy underworld and, shrouded in fog, feel like they are in a hot air balloon hanging among the clouds.
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Landport, a suburb of Portsmouth (Southern England). His father, an official of the naval commissary, soon after the boy’s birth was transferred to Chatham Docks, and from there to London.
Little Dickens early became acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith. These books captured Charles's imagination and sank into his soul forever. The greatest English realists of the past prepared him to perceive what reality revealed to him.
Dickens's family, which had modest means, experienced increasing need. The writer's father became mired in debt and soon found himself in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Having no money for an apartment, Charles’s mother settled with his sister Fanny in prison, where the prisoner’s family was usually allowed to stay, and the boy was sent to a blacking factory. Dickens, who was then only eleven years old, began to earn his own bread.
Never in his life, even in its most cloudless periods, could Dickens remember without a shudder the blacking factory, the humiliation, the hunger, the loneliness of the days spent here. For a pitiful wage, which was barely enough for a lunch of bread and cheese, the little worker, along with other children, had to spend long hours in a damp and gloomy basement, from the windows of which only the gray waters of the Thames could be seen. In this factory, the walls of which were eaten away by worms, and people were running up the stairs. huge rats, the future great writer of England worked from early morning until dusk.
IN Sundays the boy went to Marshalsea, where he remained with his family until the evening. Soon he moved there, renting a room in one of the prison buildings. During the time spent in the Marshalsea, this prison for the poor and bankrupt, Dickens became intimately familiar with the life and morals of its inhabitants. Everything he saw here came to life over time on the pages of his novel Little Dorrit.
The London of dispossessed workers, outcasts, beggars and vagabonds was the school of life that Dickens went through. He forever remembered the haggard faces of people on the streets of the city, pale, thin children, women exhausted from work. The writer experienced firsthand how bad it is for a poor man in winter in torn clothes and thin shoes, and what thoughts flash through his head when, on the way home, he stops in front of brightly lit shop windows and at the entrances of fashionable restaurants. He knew that from the fashionable quarters where the London aristocracy comfortably settled down, it was just a stone's throw away from the dirty and dark alleys where the poor lived. The life of Dickens's contemporary England revealed itself to him in all its ugliness, and the creative memory of the future realist preserved such images that over time excited the whole country.
The happy changes that occurred in the life of the Dickenses made it possible for Charles to resume his interrupted studies. The writer's father unexpectedly received a small inheritance, paid off his debts and got out of prison with his family. Dickens entered the so-called Washington House Commercial Academy on Hamsteadrod.
A passionate thirst for knowledge lived in the heart of the young man, and thanks to this he was able to overcome the unfavorable conditions of the then English school. He studied with enthusiasm, although the “academy” was not interested in the individual inclinations of children and forced them to learn books by heart. Mentors and their wards mutually hated each other, and discipline was maintained only through corporal punishment. Dickens's experiences at school were later reflected in his novels The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield.
However, Dickens did not have to stay long at the Commercial Academy. His father insisted that he leave school and become a clerk in one of the City offices. A new and hitherto little known world of small employees, entrepreneurs, sales agents and officials. Dickens's always characteristic attentive attitude to a person, to every detail of his life and character, helped the writer here, among the dusty office books, to find a lot of things that were worth remembering and that he should later tell people about.
Dickens spent his free time in the library British Museum. He decided to become a journalist and eagerly took up shorthand. Soon, young Dickens actually got a job as a reporter in one of the small London newspapers. He quickly gained fame among journalists and was invited as a reporter to the World Parliament and then to the Morning Chronicle.
However, the work of a reporter soon ceased to satisfy Dickens. He was attracted to creativity; he began to write stories, small humorous sketches, essays, the best of which he published in 1833 under the pseudonym Bosa. In 1835, two series of his essays were published as a separate publication.
Already in the “Essays of Bose” it is not difficult to discern the handwriting of the great English realist. The plots of Bose's stories are simple; The reader is captivated by the truthfulness of stories about poor clerks, small businessmen trying to get out into the world, old maids dreaming of getting married, street comedians and tramps. Already in this work of the writer his worldview was clearly revealed. Sympathy for man, pity for the poor and disadvantaged, which never left Dickens, constitute the main intonation of his first book; in “Sketches of Boz” an individual Dickensian style was outlined, in them one can see the diversity of his stylistic devices. Humorous scenes and stories about funny and absurd eccentrics are interspersed with sad stories about the fate of the English poor. Later on the pages best novels In Dickens, we meet characters who are directly related to the characters in “Sketches of Boz.”
"Sketches of Boz" was a success, but it was his novel "Posthumous Notes" that brought Dickens real fame. Pickwick Club", the first issues of which appeared in 1837.
“The Pickwick Papers” were commissioned from the writer as a series of essays accompanying the drawings of the then fashionable cartoonist D. Seymour. However, already in the first chapters of the book, the writer relegated the artist to the background. Dickens's brilliant text became the basis of the book, the drawings of Seymour, and who later replaced him Fiz (Brown) - nothing more than illustrations for him.
The author's good-natured humor and infectious laughter captivated readers, and they laughed merrily with him at the amusing adventures of the Pickwickians, at the caricature of English elections, at the machinations of lawyers and the claims of secular gentlemen. It seems that everything that happens is unfolding in the atmosphere of the patriarchal and cozy Dingley Dell, and bourgeois self-interest and hypocrisy are embodied only by the scammers Jingle and Job Trotter, who inevitably suffer defeat. The whole book breathes with the optimism of the young Dickens. True, at times the dark shadows of people offended by life flicker on the pages of the novel, but they quickly disappear, leaving the reader in the company of gentle eccentrics.
Dickens's second novel was Oliver Twist (1838). The conversation here was no longer about the adventures of cheerful travelers, but about “workhouses”, a kind of correctional institutions for the poor, about charitable institutions, the members of which think most of all about how to punish the poor for poverty, about shelters where orphans starving, about dens of thieves. And this book contains pages worthy of the pen of a great humorist. But in general, the carefree intonations of “The Pickwick Club” are forever a thing of the past. Dickens would never again write a cheerful novel. "Oliver Twist" opens a new stage in the writer's work - the stage of critical realism.
Life suggested Dickens more and more new ideas. Before he could finish work on Oliver Twist, he began a new novel, Nicholas Nickleby (1839), and in 1839-1841 he published The Antiquities Shop and Barnaby Ridge.
Dickens's fame is growing. Almost all of his books were a resounding success. The remarkable English novelist was recognized not only in England, but also far beyond its borders.
Dickens the realist, a harsh critic of bourgeois orders, emerged in the 30s of the 19th century, when important socio-political changes were taking place in his homeland; the insightful artist could not help but see how the crisis of his contemporary social system was manifested in various spheres of life.
In England at this time there was a clear discrepancy between the economic and political organization of society. By the 30s of the 19th century, the so-called “industrial revolution” ended in the country, and the British kingdom became a major industrial power. Two new ones have emerged in the public arena historical forces- industrial bourgeoisie and proletariat. But the political structure of the country remained the same as it was more than a hundred years ago. The new industrial centers, numbering tens of thousands of people, had no representation in parliament. Deputies were still elected from some provincial town, which was completely dependent on the neighboring landowner. Parliament, to which reactionary conservative circles dictated their will, finally ceased to be a representative institution.
The struggle for parliamentary reform that unfolded in the country turned into a widespread social movement. Under popular pressure, the reform was carried out in 1832. But only the industrial bourgeoisie, which rejected broad democratic reforms, took advantage of the fruits of victory. It was during this period that the complete contrast between the interests of the bourgeoisie and the people was determined. Political struggle in England has entered a new stage. Chartism arose in the country - the first organized mass revolutionary movement of the working class.
Respect for old fetishes was dying among the people. The growth of economic and social contradictions and the resulting Chartist movement caused a rise public life in the country, which in turn affected the strengthening of the critical trend in English literature. The looming problems of social reconstruction worried the minds of realist writers who thoughtfully studied reality. And the English critical realists lived up to the expectations of their contemporaries. They, each to the best of their insight, answered the questions posed by life, expressed the innermost thoughts of many millions of Englishmen.
The most talented and courageous of the representatives of the “brilliant school of English novelists,” as Marx called them (this included Charles Dickens, W. Thackeray, E. Gaskell, S. Bronte), was Charles Dickens. Outstanding Artist, who tirelessly drew his material from life, he was able to portray human character with great truthfulness. His heroes are endowed with genuine social typicality. From the vague opposition of “poor” and “rich”, characteristic of most of his contemporary writers, Dickens turned to the question of the real social contradictions of the era, speaking in his best novels about the contradiction between labor and capital, between the worker and the capitalist entrepreneur.
Despite their deeply correct assessment of many life phenomena, the English critical realists essentially did not put forward any positive social program. Rejecting the path of popular uprising, they did not see a real opportunity to resolve the conflict between poverty and wealth. The illusions inherent in English critical realism in general were also characteristic of Dickens. He was also sometimes inclined to think that evil people, of whom there are many in all levels of society, were to blame for the existing injustice, and hoped, by softening the hearts of those in power, to help the poor. This conciliatory moralizing tendency is present to varying degrees in all of Dickens’s works, but it is especially pronounced in his “Christmas Tales” (1843-1848).
However, "Christmas Stories" does not define his entire work. The forties were the period of greatest flowering of English critical realism, and for Dickens they marked the period that prepared the appearance of his most significant novels.
The writer’s trip to America, which he took in 1842, played a significant role in shaping Dickens’s views. If in his homeland Dickens, like most representatives of the English bourgeois intelligentsia, could have the illusion that the vices of contemporary social life were primarily due to the dominance of the aristocracy, then in America the writer saw the bourgeois legal order in its “pure form.”
American impressions, which served as material for “American Notes” (1842) and the novel “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” (1843-1844), helped the writer look into the very depths of the bourgeois world, and notice in his homeland such phenomena that are still escaped his attention.
The period of greatest ideological and creative maturity of Dickens begins. In 1848 - during the years of the new rise of Chartism and the emergence of a revolutionary situation in Europe - Dickens’s wonderful novel “Dombey and Son” was published, highly appreciated by V. G. Belinsky, in this book the realist artist moves on from criticizing certain aspects of contemporary reality to a direct denunciation of the entire bourgeois social system.
The Dombey and Son trading house is a small cell of a large whole. Contempt for man and the soulless, selfish calculation of Mr. Dombey personify, according to the artist’s plan, the main vices of the bourgeois world. The novel was conceived by Dickens as the story of Dombey's fall: life mercilessly takes revenge for trampled humanity, and victory goes to the inhabitants of the Wooden Midshipman's shop, who follow in their actions only the dictates of a good heart.
“Dombey and Son” opens the period of greatest ideological and creative maturity of the great realist. One of the last works of this period was the novel Bleak House, published in 1853.
In the novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens depicted both the public and private life of the English bourgeoisie with the mercilessness of a satirist. The writer sees his homeland as a gloomy, “cold house,” where the prevailing social laws oppress and cripple the souls of people, and he looks into the darkest corners of this big house.
In London there is all sorts of weather. But in Bleak House, Dickens most often paints us a picture of a foggy, autumn-gloomy London. The fog that shrouds Lincoln Fields, where the judges hearing the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case has been sitting in the Lord Chancellor's Courthouse for many decades now, is especially rare. All their efforts are aimed at confusing an already complicated case in which some relatives dispute the rights of others to a long-defunct inheritance.
No matter how different the judges and lawyers are in their position and their individual characteristics, each located on the corresponding step of the hierarchical ladder of the British court, they are all united by the greedy desire to enslave the client, to take possession of his money and secrets. This is Mr. Tulkinghorn, a respectable gentleman whose soul resembles a safe keeping the terrible secrets of the best families in London. Such is the smooth-talking Mr. Kenge, who charms his charges like a boa constrictor of rabbits. Even young Guppy, occupying one of the last places in the corporation of pulls and tricks, no matter what he has to face in life, he operates primarily with the knowledge acquired in the office of Kenge and Carboy.
But perhaps the most typical of all the lawyers depicted in Bleak House is Mr. Vholes. A lean gentleman with a pimply, sallow face, always dressed in black and always correct, he will be remembered by the reader for a long time. Vholes talks all the time about his old father and three orphan daughters, to whom he allegedly strives to leave only a good NAME as an inheritance. In reality, he makes good money for them by robbing gullible clients. Ruthless in his greed, the hypocrite Vholes is a typical product of the puritanical morality of the bourgeois, and WE can easily find many of his ancestors among the satirical images of Fielding and Smollett.
Back in The Pickwick Club, Dickens told his readers the amusing story of how Mr. Pickwick was misled by the lawyers when he was put on trial on a false charge of breaking his promise to marry his landlady, the Widow Bardle. We cannot help but laugh at the case of Hurdle v. Pickwick, even though we feel sorry for the innocent hero who suffered. But the case of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” is depicted by the author in such gloomy tones that the fleeting smile caused by individual comical details of the story immediately disappears from the reader’s face. In Bleak House, Dickens tells the story of several generations of people embroiled in pointless litigation and handed over to greedy and soulless lawyers. The artist achieves enormous persuasiveness in his narrative - he shows the machine of English legal proceedings in action.
Many people, old and very young, completely broke and still rich, spend their lives in courtrooms. Here's little old Miss Flight. Who comes to the Supreme Court every day with her tattered reticule filled with half-decayed documents that have long lost all value. Even in her youth, she found herself entangled in some kind of litigation and all her life she did nothing but go to court. For Miss Flight, the whole world is limited to Lincoln Fields, where the Supreme Court is located. And the highest human wisdom is embodied by its head, the Lord Chancellor. But in moments, the old woman’s reason returns, and she sadly tells how, one after another, the birds, whom she christened Joy, Hope, Youth, Happiness, die in her pitiful closet.
Mr. Gridley, nicknamed here “the man from Shropshire,” also comes to court, a poor man whose strength and health were also consumed by judicial red tape. But if Miss Flight has come to terms with her fate, then Gridley’s soul is seething with indignation. He sees his mission in denouncing judges and lawyers. But Gridley cannot change the course of events. Tormented by life, tired and broken, he dies like a beggar in George's gallery.
Almost all of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce litigants suffer the same fate as Flyte or Gridley. On the pages of the novel we see the life of a young man named Richard Carston. A distant relative of the Jarndyces. A handsome, cheerful young man, tenderly in love with his cousin Ada and dreaming of happiness with her. He gradually begins to become imbued with a general interest in the process. Already in the first chapters of the novel. When the crazy old lady Flight first appears before the happy Ada and Richard, Dickens seems to be revealing a symbol of their future. At the end of the book, the embittered Richard, tormented by consumption, having squandered all his and Ada’s funds in this litigation, reminds us of Gridley.
A lot of people became victims of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case, and in the end it turned out that there was no case at all. Because the money bequeathed by one of the Jarndyces went entirely to pay legal costs. People accepted the fiction, covered by the ostentatious splendor of English legislation, as reality. An invincible belief in the power of laws is one of the conventions of the English bourgeois society depicted by Dickens.
Dickens is especially outraged by the English aristocracy with its slavish adherence to empty fetishes and arrogant disregard for the environment. In Bleak House this line social criticism was embodied in the history of the Dedlock house.
In Chesney Wold, the Dedlock family estate. As majestic as they themselves are, the “color” of London society gathers, and Dickens paints them with all the power of his satirical talent. These are arrogant degenerates, parasites bored with idleness, greedy for other people's misfortunes. From the entire crowd of slanderous ladies and gentlemen who make up the background of Chesney-Wold, stands Volumnia Dedlock, in whom all the vices are concentrated high society. This faded beauty from the younger branch of the Dedlocks divides her life between London and the fashionable resort of Bath, between the pursuit of suitors and the pursuit of an inheritance. She is envious and heartless, knows neither sincere sympathy nor compassion.
Dedlocks are the personification of British nobility. They preserve their family traditions and hereditary prejudices with equal pride. They firmly believe that all the best in the world should belong to them and be created for the sole purpose of serving their greatness. Having inherited their rights and privileges from their ancestors, they feel like owners not only in relation to things, but also in relation to people. The name Dedlock itself can be translated into Russian as “vicious circle”, “dead end”. Indeed. Deadlocks have long been frozen in one state. Life passes them by; they feel THAT events are developing, that new people have appeared in England - “iron masters” who are ready to declare their rights. Deadlocks are mortally afraid of everything new and therefore withdraw even more into their narrow little world, not allowing anyone in from the outside and thereby hoping to protect their parks from the smoke of factories and factories.
But all the desires of the Dedlocks are powerless before the logic of history. And although Dickens seemingly exposes the Dedlocks only in the sphere of their private life, the book clearly sounds the theme of social retribution of the British aristocracy.
To show the entire illegality of the claims of the English nobility, Dickens chose the most ordinary detective story. The beautiful and majestic wife of Sir Leicester, destined to adorn the Dedlock family, turns out to be the former mistress of an unknown army captain and the mother of an illegitimate child.
Lady Dedlock's past stains her husband's family, and the law itself comes to the defense of the Dedlocks in the person of lawyer Tulkinghorn and detective Bucket. They are preparing punishment for Lady Dedlock not at the request of Sir Leicester, but because the Dedlock family is related to all these Doodles. Koodles, Noodles - masters of life, whose political reputation last years maintained with more and more difficulty.
However, the end of Lord and Lady Dedlock received a deeply humanistic solution from the pen of the great artist. In their grief, each of them overcame the conventions that bound him social life, and the blow that crushed the dignity of the titled spouses returned them to the people. Only the debunked Dedlocks, who had lost everything in the eyes of society, spoke the language of genuine human feelings that touch the reader to the depths of his soul.
The whole system public relations, shown by the realist writer in Bleak House, is designed to protect the inviolability of the bourgeois legal order. This purpose is served by British legislation and the conventions of the world, with the help of which a select few are fenced off from the huge mass of their compatriots, brought up from childhood in respect for such principles, people are so imbued with them that they often free themselves from them only at the cost of their own lives.
The inhabitants of the “cold house” are obsessed with the thirst for money. Because of money, members of the Jarndyce family have hated each other for several generations and dragged each other through the courts. Brother confronts brother over a dubious inheritance, the owner of which, perhaps, did not bequeath to him even a silver spoon.
For the sake of wealth and position in society, the future Lady Dedlock abandons her loved one and the joys of motherhood and becomes the wife of an old baronet. She, like Edith Dombey, the heroine of the novel Dombey and Son, exchanged her freedom for the apparent prosperity of a rich home, but found only misfortune and shame there.
Greedy for profit, lawyers deceive their clients day and night, moneylenders and detectives come up with cunning plans. Money penetrated every corner of public and private life in Dickens's contemporary England. And the whole country seems to him like one big family, suing over a huge inheritance.
In this society, poisoned by self-interest, two types of people easily develop. Such are Smallweed and Skimpole. Smallweed embodies the typical characteristics of those who actively use the right to rob and deceive. Dickens deliberately exaggerates the colors, trying to show how disgusting is the appearance of a person for whom acquisitiveness becomes the goal and meaning of life. This small, weak old man is endowed with enormous spiritual energy, aimed exclusively at building cruel intrigues against his neighbors. He carefully monitors everything that happens around him, lying in wait for his prey. The image of Smallweed embodies a bourgeois individual contemporary to Dickens, inspired only by the thirst for enrichment, which he vainly masks with hypocritical moral maxims.
The opposite of Smallweed. It would seem, Mr. Skimpole imagines, a kind of resident in the house of John Jarndyce, a cheerful, good-looking gentleman who wants to live for his own pleasure. Skimpole is not a money-grubber; he only takes advantage of the dishonest machinations of the smallwids.
The same social system, which is based on deception and oppression, gave birth to both smallwids and skimpoles. Each of them complements the other. The only difference between them is that the first expresses the position of people who actively use existing norms of social life, while the second uses them passively. Smallweed hates the poor: each of them, in his opinion, is ready to encroach on his money. Skimpole is deeply indifferent to them and just doesn’t want the ragamuffins to come into his sight. This selfish epicurean, who puts his own comfort above all else, like the representatives of the British aristocracy, does not know the value of money and despises all activity. It is no coincidence that he evokes such sympathy from Sir Lester Dedlock, who feels a kindred spirit in him.
Smallweed and Skimpole are a symbolic generalization of those. Among whom are material benefits distributed in bourgeois England?
Dickens tried to contrast the young enterprising entrepreneur Rouncewell, whose figure is noticeably idealized, with Dedlock and Skimpole, who mercilessly plunder the fruits of the people's labor, and the hoarding of Smallweed. The writer saw only the ways in which Rouncewell differed from Dedlock and Skimpole, but did not notice how he was similar to Smallweed. Naturally, such an image could not have been successful for the realist Dickens. Less than a year later, Rouncewell was replaced by the manufacturer Bounderbrby from the novel Hard Times (1854), which embodied all the callousness and cruelty of his class.
Having correctly identified the contradiction between the aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie, Dickens also understood the main social conflict of the era - the conflict between the ruling classes as a whole and the people. The pages of his novels, telling about the plight of ordinary workers, best speak of why the honest and insightful artist wrote his books.
The poor are deprived of their rights and deprived of illusions about the prosperity of their homeland. The inhabitants of dilapidated houses, and more often of London pavements and parks, know well how difficult it is to live in a “cold house”.
Each of the poor people portrayed by Dickens in the novel has his own personality. Such is Goose, a little servant in Mr. Snagsby's house, a lonely orphan, sickly and downtrodden. She is all embodied fear of life, of people. The expression of fear is forever frozen on her face, and everything that happens in the Cooks Court alley fills the girl’s heart with trembling despair.
Joe from the Lonely Tom neighborhood often comes here to Cooks Court Lane. No one can really say where Joe lives or how he hasn't starved to death yet. The boy has no relatives or relatives; he sweeps the pavements, carries out small errands, wanders the streets until somewhere he stumbles upon a policeman who chases him from everywhere: “Come on in, don’t linger!..” “Come on in,” always “go on through” somewhere - that’s the only word , which Joe hears from people is the only thing he knows. Homeless tramp Joe is the embodiment of painful ignorance. “I don’t know, I don’t know anything...” Joe answers all the questions, and how much great human resentment is heard in these words! Joe gropes through life, vaguely aware that some kind of injustice is happening in the world around him. He would like to know why he exists in the world, why other people live, that Joe is the way he is, my lords and eminences, “the reverend and unlike ministers of all cults,” are to blame. It is them who the realist Dickens blames for the life and death of Joe.
This is the story of one of the many inhabitants of the Lonely Tom quarter. Like a London tramp, the forgotten Lonely Tom is lost somewhere between the fashionable houses of the rich, and none of these well-fed people wants to know where he is, what he is like. Lonely Tom becomes a symbol of the difficult fate of working London in the novel.
Most of the inhabitants of Lonely Tom accept their suffering without complaint. Only among the brickworkers who huddle in miserable hovels near London does their half-starved existence give rise to protest. And although Dickens is saddened by the bitterness of the brickmakers, he still thinks about their history.
Servants and maidservants, poor people and beggars, eccentric renegades, somehow earning their bread, crowd the pages of Bleak House. They are the good geniuses of those events that are unraveled by the clever hand of an artist who knew well that little people are involved in big things. Each of these humble workers has a role to play in the events described, and it is difficult to imagine what the outcome of the novel would have been without the old campaigner George Rouncewell or the homeless Joe.
Dickens talks about all these nice and honest people in one of his best works. He takes his readers to the stinking slums of Lonely Tom, to the rickety huts of brick workers, where wind and cold easily penetrate, to attics where hungry children sit locked up until the evening. The story of how people who are naturally kinder and more sympathetic than many rich people suffer from hunger and die in poverty sounds from the lips of an English realist as a cruel denunciation of the ruling system.
Dickens was never able to free himself from his liberal illusions. He believed that the situation of English workers would radically improve if the ruling classes were imbued with sympathy for them and care for them. However, the writer's observations conflicted with his utopian dreams. So on the pages of his novels, starting with The Pickwick Club, grotesque images of all kinds of gentlemen from charitable societies appeared, whose activities serve anything - personal enrichment, ambitious plans, but not helping the disadvantaged.
But, perhaps, the writer was most successful with the philanthropists from Bleak House - Jellyby, Chadband and others. Mrs. Jellyby is one of those who has devoted her life to charity, from morning to night she is absorbed in the worries associated with missionary work in Africa, while her own family declines. Mrs. Jellyby's daughter, Caddy, runs away from home, and the other children, ragged and hungry, suffer all sorts of misadventures. The husband goes broke; the servants steal the remaining goods. All the Jellybys, young and old, are in a pitiful state, and the mistress sits in her office above a mountain of correspondence, and her eyes are fixed on Africa, where the “natives” under her care live in the village of Boriobulagha. Caring for one's fellow man begins to seem like selfishness, and Mrs. Jellyby ends up not much different from old Mr. Turveydrop, who is concerned only with his own person.
Mrs. Jellyby's "Telescopic Philanthropy" is a symbol of English charity. When homeless children die nearby, on the next street, the English bourgeoisie send soul-saving brochures to the Boryobul Negroes, who are cared about only because they may not even exist in the world.
All the benefactors from Bleak House, including Pardiggle, Quayle and Gusher, are extremely unattractive in appearance and unpleasant manners, talk a lot about loving the poor, but have not yet performed a single good deed. These are selfish people, often people with a very dubious reputation, who, although they talk about mercy, care only about their own good. Mr. Gusher makes a solemn speech to the students of the orphan school, convincing them to contribute their pennies and half-pens for a gift to Mr. Quayle, and he himself has already received a donation at the request of Mr. Quayle. Mrs. Pardiggle uses exactly the same methods. A look of rage appears on the faces of her five sons when this terrifying-looking woman loudly proclaims how much each of her little ones has donated to one or another charitable cause.
Preacher Chadband is supposed to instruct in good deeds, but his very name has passed from Dickens's novel into the general English dictionary to mean "unctuous hypocrite."
The figure of Chadband embodies the hypocrisy of English charity. Chadband understood his mission well - to protect the well-fed from the hungry. Like any preacher, he is busy making sure that the poor are less bothered by the rich with complaints and requests, and for this purpose he intimidates them with his sermons. Chadband's image is revealed already in his first meeting with Joe. Sitting in front of the hungry boy and devouring one tartine after another, he makes his endless speeches about human dignity and love for one's neighbor, and then drives the ragged boy away, ordering him to come again for an edifying conversation.
Dickens understood that the English poor would not receive help from people like Quayle, Gusher and Chadband, although they needed it more and more. But Dickens was able to contrast the sanctimonious official charity only with the private philanthropy of the good rich.
The favorite heroes of the author of “Bleak House” - John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson - are driven only by the desire to help the unfortunate. They save little Charlie, her brother and sister from poverty, help Joe, the brickmakers, Flight, Gridley, George Rouncewell and his devoted Phil. But how little does this mean in front of the enormous disasters that are fraught with “Bleak House” - the birthplace of Dickens! How many needy people can the good Mr. Snagsby give his half-crowns to? Will the young doctor of Woodcourt Alley visit all the sick and dying in the London slums? Esther takes little Charlie in with her, but she is powerless to help Joe. Jarndyce's money is also of little use. Instead of helping the poor, he finances Jellyby's senseless activities and supports the parasite Skimpole. True, sometimes doubts creep into his soul. At such moments, Jarndyce is in the habit of complaining about the “east wind,” which, no matter how you warm the “cold house,” penetrates its many cracks and carries away all the heat.
The originality of Dickens's writing style appears with great clarity in his novel Bleak House. The writer walked through life, looking closely at everything, not missing a single expressive detail of human behavior, not a single unique feature of the world around him. Things and phenomena acquire from him independent life. They know the secret of each of the heroes and predict his fate. The trees in Chesney Wold Park whisper ominously about Honoria Dedlock's past and future. The Roman warrior depicted on the ceiling of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room has long been pointing to the floor - to the very place where the body of the murdered lawyer was eventually found. The cracks in the shutters of Nemo's scribe's pitiful closet resemble someone's eyes, which look at everything that happens in the Cook's Court alley with either a curiously intent or an ominously mysterious gaze.
Dickens's creative idea is revealed not only through the thoughts and actions of the characters, but also through the entire figurative structure of the novel. Dickens's realistic symbolism recreates the entire complex interweaving of human destinies and the internal development of the plot. The writer succeeds in this because the symbol is not introduced by him into the novel, but grows out of life, as the most prominent expression of its tendencies and patterns. Not concerned about petty plausibility
And where Dickens deviates from the truth of life, he is weaker as an artist. Two characters drop out figurative system the novel and how the characters are inferior to its other characters. This is John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson. Jarndyce is perceived by the reader in only one capacity - a kind, slightly grumpy guardian, who seems to be called upon to look after all of humanity. Esther Summerson, on whose behalf the narrative is told in individual chapters, is endowed with nobility and prudence, but sometimes falls into “humiliation rather than pride,” which does not fit with her general appearance. Jarndyce and Hester are deprived of much life-like verisimilitude, since the writer made them carriers of his self-defeating tendency - to make everyone happy equally in a society built on the principle: the happiness of some is bought at the price of the misfortune of others.
Bleak House, like almost all of Dickens's novels, has a happy ending. The Jarndyce v. Jarndyce trial is over. Esther married her beloved Allen Woodcourt. George Rouncewell returned to his mother and brother. Peace reigned in Snagsby's house; The Begnet family found well-deserved peace. And yet, the gloomy tones in which the entire novel is written do not soften even at the end of the book. After the successful completion of the events told by the author of Bleak House, only a few of his heroes remained alive, and if happiness befell them, it was cruelly overshadowed by memories of past losses.
Already in “Bleak House” the pessimism that permeated Dickens’s last six novels was evident. Feeling powerless in the face of difficult things social conflicts, the feeling of the worthlessness of the reforms he proposed were a source of deep sadness for the writer. He knew his contemporary society too well not to see how natural poverty, oppression, and loss of human values were in it.
Dickens's novels are strong with great life truth. They truly reflected his era, the hopes and sorrows, aspirations and sufferings of many thousands of the writer’s contemporaries, who, although they were the creators of all the good in the country, found themselves deprived of basic human rights. In defense of the simple worker, one of the first in his homeland to raise his voice was the great English realist Charles Dickens, whose works became part of the classical heritage of the English people.
Esther Summerston spent her childhood in Windsor, in the house of her godmother, Miss Barbery. The girl feels lonely and often says, turning to her best friend, the rosy-cheeked doll: “You know very well, doll, that I’m a fool, so be kind, don’t be angry with me.” Esther strives to find out the secret of her origin and begs her godmother to tell her at least something about her mother. One day Miss Barbery cannot stand it and sternly says: “Your mother has covered herself with shame, and you have brought shame upon her. Forget about her...” One day, returning from school, Esther finds an important, unfamiliar gentleman in the house. Having looked at the girl, he says something like “Ah!”, then “Yes!” and leaves...
Esther is fourteen years old when her godmother suddenly dies. What could be worse than being orphaned twice! After the funeral, the same gentleman named Kenge appears and, on behalf of a certain Mr. Jarndyce, aware of the sad situation of the young lady, offers to place her in a first-class educational institution, where she will not need anything and will prepare for “fulfilling her duty in the public field.” The girl gratefully accepts the offer and a week later, abundantly supplied with everything she needs, she leaves for the city of Reading, to Miss Donnie’s boarding house. There are only twelve girls studying there, and the future teacher Esther, with her kind character and desire to help, wins their affection and love. This is how six of the happiest years of her life pass.
After completing her studies, John Jarndyce (guardian, as Esther calls him) assigns the girl as a companion to his cousin Ada Clare. Together with Ada's young relative, Mr. Richard Carston, they travel to the guardian's estate known as Bleak House. The house once belonged to Mr. Jarndyce's great-uncle, the unfortunate Sir Tom, and was called "The Spiers." Perhaps the most famous case of the so-called Chancery Court, “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,” was associated with this house. The Court of Chancery was created during the era of Richard II, who reigned from 1377–1399, to control the Court of Common Law and correct its errors. But the British hopes for the emergence of a “Court of Justice” were not destined to come true: red tape and abuses by officials led to processes lasting for decades, plaintiffs, witnesses, and lawyers dying, thousands of papers accumulating, and no end to the litigation in sight. Such was the dispute over the Jarndyce inheritance - a long-term trial, during which the owner of Bleak House, mired in legal matters, forgets about everything, and his home deteriorates under the influence of wind and rain. “It seemed as if the house had taken a bullet in the forehead, just like its desperate owner.” Now, thanks to the efforts of John Jarndyce, the house looks transformed, and with the advent of young people it comes to life even more. The smart and sensible Esther is given the keys to the rooms and storage rooms. She copes excellently with difficult household chores - it’s not for nothing that Sir John affectionately calls her Bustle! Life in the house flows smoothly, visits alternate with trips to London theaters and shops, receiving guests gives way to long walks...
Their neighbors turn out to be Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife, a good two decades younger than him. As experts joke, my lady has “the impeccable appearance of the most well-groomed mare in the entire stable.” The secular chronicle notes her every step, every event in her life. Sir Leicester is not so popular, but does not suffer from this, for he is proud of his aristocratic family and cares only about the purity of his good name. Neighbors sometimes meet in church, on walks, and Esther for a long time cannot forget the emotional excitement that gripped her at the first sight of Lady Dedlock.
The young employee of Kendge's office, William Guppy, experiences a similar excitement: when he sees Esther, Ada and Richard in London on the way to Sir John's estate, he falls in love with the pretty, gentle Esther at first sight. While in those parts on company business, Guppy visits the Dedlock estate and, amazed, stops at one of the family portraits. The face of Lady Dedlock, seen for the first time, seems strangely familiar to the clerk. Soon Guppy arrives at Bleak House and confesses his love to Esther, but receives a decisive rebuff. Then he hints at the amazing similarity between Hester and my lady. “Give me your hand,” William persuades the girl, “and I can’t think of anything to protect your interests and make you happy!” I can’t find out anything about you!” He kept his word. Letters from an unknown gentleman who died from an excessive dose of opium in a dirty, squalid closet and was buried in a common grave in a cemetery for the poor fall into his hands. From these letters, Guppy learns about the connection between Captain Hawdon (that was the name of this gentleman) and Lady Dedlock, about the birth of their daughter. William immediately shares his discovery with Lady Dedlock, causing her extreme embarrassment. But, without giving in to panic, she aristocratically coldly rejects the clerk’s arguments and only after he leaves exclaims: “Oh, my child, my daughter! That means she didn’t die in the first hours of her life!”
Esther becomes seriously ill with smallpox. This happened after the orphaned daughter of a court official, Charlie, appears on their estate, who becomes both a grateful pupil and a devoted maid for Esther. Esther nurses a sick girl and becomes infected herself. Household members hide mirrors for a long time so as not to upset Troublemaker with the sight of her dull face. Lady Dedlock, waiting for Esther to recover, secretly meets with her in the park and admits that she is her unhappy mother. In those early days, when Captain Hawdon abandoned her, she - so she was led to believe - gave birth to a stillborn child. Could she have imagined that the girl would come to life in the arms of her older sister and would be raised in complete secrecy from her mother... Lady Dedlock sincerely repents and begs for forgiveness, but most of all - for silence, in order to preserve the usual life of a rich and noble person and peace spouse. Esther, shocked by the discovery, agrees to any conditions.
No one has any idea what happened - not only Sir John, burdened with worries, but also the young doctor Allen Woodcourt, who is in love with Esther. Smart and reserved, he makes a favorable impression on the girl. He lost his father early, and his mother invested all her meager funds in his education. But, not having enough connections and money in London, Allen cannot earn it by treating the poor. It is not surprising that at the first opportunity, Dr. Woodcourt agrees to the position of ship’s doctor and goes to India and China for a long time. Before leaving, he visits Bleak House and excitedly says goodbye to its inhabitants.
Richard is also trying to change his life: he chooses the legal field. Having started working in Kenge's office, he, to Guppy's displeasure, boasts that he figured out the Jarndyce case. Despite Esther's advice not to enter into a tedious litigation with the Court of Chancery, Richard files an appeal in the hope of winning an inheritance from Sir John for himself and his cousin Ada, to whom he is engaged. He “gambles everything he can scrape together,” spends his beloved’s small savings on duties and taxes, but legal red tape is robbing him of his health. Having secretly married Ada, Richard falls ill and dies in the arms of his young wife, never seeing his unborn son.
And clouds are gathering around Lady Dedlock. A few careless words lead lawyer Tulkinghorn, a regular at their house, to the trail of her secret. This respectable gentleman, whose services are generously paid in high society, masterfully masters the ability to live and makes it his duty to do without any convictions. Tulkinghorn suspects that Lady Dedlock, disguised as a French maid, visited the house and grave of her lover, Captain Hawdon. He steals letters from Guppy - this is how he learns the details love story. In the presence of the Dedlocks and their guests, Tulkinghorn tells this story, which supposedly happened to some unknown person. Milady understands that the time has come to find out what he is trying to achieve. In response to her words that she wants to disappear from her home forever, the lawyer convinces her to continue to keep the secret for the sake of the peace of mind of Sir Leicester, who “even the fall of the moon from the sky would not be as stunned” as the revelation of his wife.
Esther decides to reveal her secret to her guardian. He greets her confused story with such understanding and tenderness that the girl is filled with “fiery gratitude” and a desire to work hard and selflessly. It is not difficult to guess that when Sir John makes her an offer to become the real mistress of Bleak House, Esther agrees.
A terrible event distracts her from the pleasant upcoming chores and pulls her out of Bleak House for a long time. It so happened that Tulkinghorn broke the agreement with Lady Dedlock and threatened to soon reveal the shameful truth to Sir Leicester. After a difficult conversation with Milady, the lawyer goes home, and the next morning he is found dead. Suspicion falls on Lady Dedlock. Police Inspector Bucket conducts an investigation and informs Sir Leicester of the results: all the evidence collected points against the French maid. She's under arrest.
Sir Leicester cannot bear the thought that his wife has been “thrown down from the heights that she adorned,” and he himself falls, struck down by the blow. Milady, feeling hunted, runs away from home without taking any jewelry or money. She left Farewell letter- about being innocent and wanting to disappear. Inspector Bucket sets out to find this troubled soul and turns to Esther for help. They travel a long way in the footsteps of Lady Dedlock. The paralyzed husband, disregarding the threat to the honor of the family, forgives the fugitive and eagerly awaits her return. Dr. Allen Woodcourt, who recently returned from China, joins the search. During the separation, he fell in love with Esther even more, but alas... At the grate of the memorial cemetery for the poor, he discovers the lifeless body of her mother.
Esther experiences what happened for a long time, painfully, but gradually life takes its toll. Her guardian, having learned of Allen's deep feelings, nobly makes way for him. Bleak House is empty: John Jarndyce, who is also the guardian, has taken care of arranging for Esther and Allen an equally glorious smaller estate in Yorkshire, where Allen gets a position as a doctor for the poor. He also called this estate “Bleak House”. There was also a place in it for Ada and her son, named Richard after his father. With the first available money, they build a room for the guardian (“the grumbling room”) and invite him to stay. Sir John becomes a loving guardian to now Ada and her little Richard. They return to the “elder” Bleak House, and often come to stay with the Woodcourts: for Esther and her husband, Sir John has always remained the best friend. So seven passes happy years, and the words of the wise guardian come true: “Both houses are dear to you, but the elder Bleak House claims primacy.”