Bleak House and the social position of Women.

Charles Dicken’s Bleak House is a wonderful, though sometimes a bit lengthy novel. For the most part, Dickens is not interested in telling a story, but instead choses to concentrate on building a world inside the novel. In this world he has built, society much resembles the time in which Dickens worked and lived, namely, the nineteenth century. This society bears the conventional divide between the genders, as every society does. This divide is the central subject within this work. The central question therefore is: “How does Bleak House explore the social position of women in the nineteenth century?”. The thesis statement which will be argued within this work goes as follows: “Bleak House explores the position of women by giving roughly half of the novel to a female narrator. Her chapters within the novel are meant to show the reader what a man considered to be a woman’s domain”. It is important to remember, that even though Dickens is a phenomenal writer, he still only offers a one sided perspective to society: the perspective of a man.  

            This male perspective is quite obvious in the way some female characters have been created in this novel. Most obviously is the fact that every woman is connected to a man in some way. Even Miss Flite depends on Mr. Guppy for financial support, though they have no familial relation.[1] The same goes for Esther. She was raised by her aunt, whom Esther believed to be her guardian. When this woman died, Esther was sent by a mysterious person to Greenleaf, where she was to be educated for 6 years. Esther had quite happily settled in at Greenleaf and would have been happy to stay there, but then Mister Jarndyce, her mysterious benefactor and guardian sends for Esther so she can become a guardian for Ada Clare, a warden of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. [2] In the first few chapters of the novel, Esther’s life is fully controlled by a man, Mister Jarndyce. Even though Esther is one of the main characters of the novel, she has very little control over her own life. In this sense, Esther could be seen as archetypically representative of the Victorian middle-class woman. She has been raised in this patriarchal society and as a result her own selfhood is in question.[3] As the novel continues, the identity of Esther seems to disintegrate. She gains so many nicknames that her “own name soon became quite lost among them”.[4] Of course women had very little control over their lives during the nineteenth century, but to have this little control over one’s life seems a bit extreme,  compared to works written by female authors in approximately the same period, such as Jane Austen.

            The novel’s structure is ideal for exploring the social position of women in the nineteenth century. 32 out of the 67 chapters of Bleak House offer this female perspective, narrated by Esther, while the male omniscient narrator controls the rest of the chapters. The masculine narrator offers readers the analytical overview of the world contained in the novel. This narrator merely observes: nothing is assumed, everything is merely observed: it’s rational and distant, never getting involved in the story. Esther’s narration on the other hand offers the female, softer perspective. It gives the readers the private, personal point of view. Esther does not know anything of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit, so she is unable to give the readers any information on this subject.[5] The law is solely narrated by the omniscient male narrator, making a clear distinction between the male and female domains. The division is clear: Esther’s narration concentrates on the inside world: the world of the home and the hearth, while the male narration focusses on the outside world, the city and the law.

            Women are the keepers of home and hearth according to Charles Dickens. Quite soon after her arrival at Bleak House, Esther becomes housekeeper of the mansion, and enjoys her housework. She manages to turn Bleak House into a safe and happy, loving home, showing that she is a good housekeeper. Many other women in Bleak House however, are terrible housekeepers. Mrs. Jellyby, Mrs. Pardiggle and Lady Dedlock are the most clear examples of bad housekeepers. Both Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pardiggle are too focussed on their charities to see that their own houses have fallen apart and that their children are completely discontent.[6] Lady Dedlock is also said to be a terrible housekeeper, but luckily, Chesney Wold is not dependent on Lady Dedlock’s housekeeping skills, as the mansion is run by Mrs. Rouncewell.

            The novel Bleak House contains many strong women with their own clear opinions, such as Mrs. Badger, but still she puts her own interests third to the interests of her husband and her children. Mrs. Badger is described as a strong woman, who often speaks for her husband, but only when he asks her to (which is almost always if she is near).[7] This theme continues throughout the novel and can be seen most clearly in Lady Dedlock. At the end of the novel, she tells Esther the secret of her origins and begs her to keep her secret. She does not beg Esther to do this for her sake, but for Sir Leicester Dedlock’s sake. He would be thoroughly embarrassed by the whole affair, while Lady Dedlock would stand to lose everything she has spent her life building. She puts her own interests behind her husbands because he loves her and she wants to save him any embarrassment.[8] The truth of Esther’s parentage is another example of the different rules applied to women in Victorian society. If Lady Dedlock had been Lord Dedlock, the secret could never have caused so much problems as it had now. Because she is a woman, Lady Dedlock is a fallen woman, who has forfeited any rights to a place in society when she had a child out of wedlock. The same taint has spread to Esther: had society known about her parentage, she would have been cast out of society. Mother and daughter are forced to renounce each other in order to maintain their place in society.

            There is much more to be said on this topic and perhaps it would have been better to choose one large essay on this topic, but another choice has been made. It has become clear through close reading of the novel, that Dickens wanted women to be good caretakers, but also knew enough of reality to show that this is certainly not always the case. Women are subjected to a whole different set of rules in society than their male counterparts. Women are to put their faith in the men who take care of them, as can be seen in Esther’s blind faith in her guardian, as well as Miss Flites reliance on Mister Guppy. Women can be strong and good caretakers, but they still need to refer to “their” menfolk, to relate their interests to theirs. Society’s moral rules are much more strictly imposed on women than on men. In this novel, Dickens has created a traditional ethic of stability and constancy, especially rooted in Esther.[9] The female domain is the home and hearth, and the women who succeed in running a good household are described as pleasant woman, lovely to be around. The women who fail to maintain a good household are described in far less friendly ways, making it quite clearly what Charles Dickens considers to be a good woman.

Bibliography

Blain, Virginia, ‘Double Vision and the Double Standard in Bleak House: A Feminist Perspective’, Literature and History 11.1 (1985).

Dever, Carolyn M., ‘Broken Mirror, Broken Words: Autobiography, Prosopopeia, and the Dead Mother in Bleak House’, Studies in the Novel 27.1 (1995).

Dickens, Charles, Bleak House (London 2011).