BLEAK HOUSE

-Charles dickens

Bleak House

SUMMARY

Bleak House is a scathing satire on 'law s delay' , Richard carstone and his pretty cousin Ada Clare are the victims of chancery . They are wards in the court of jaundyce and jaundyce . The case has been continuing for years, and nobody knows when it would be brought to a happy conclusion . The cousins are in the custody of John jaundycle , who happens to be related to him. They secretly get married. Richard is a young man and seeks employment here and there . Not endowed with robust health , he pines away . At long last when the case is clinched it appears that all the money due to them has been spent on lawyers . Ada ,left resourceless ,still stays with John jaundyce and is helped by Esther summerson , supposed to be an orphan.

In reality , however ,she is the daughter of a secret union of captain Rawdon and lady Deadlock . Captain Rawdon is supposed to have been drowned in the sea . He , is however , alive . The poor daughter lives as an orphan, and Rawdon ekes out his existence as a scrivener . Lady Dedlock happens to know that her former lover is alive. The crafty lawyer tulkinghorn exploits the situation . He goes so far as to threaten the lady that he will divulge her guarded secret to her husband . On that very night tulkinghorn is killed under mysterious circumstances . The detective arrests the lady's french maid . Sir Leicester Dedlock comes to know all about his wife's past life. The lady has no option but to flee in utter despair and consternation . Rawdon was already dead and the lady's dead body is discovered near the grave. Sir Leicester and Esther are Searching for her frantically only to see her sad end . John jaundyce offers to marry Esther . Esther is in love with a young doctor , but out of sheer gratitude she accepts jaundyce's proposal .

The chancery court has added to the misery of men and women . The world is depicted as 'dim', 'sallow', 'murky', 'hopeless', . The London topography is vivid and awe inspiring. Parasitism ,and tyranny ho hand in hand . Any sensible reader can reconstruct the lurid history of Victorian England from the novels of Dickens . He has salutary things to say , but he says these things with the sceptical lifting of the eyebrow and an ironical grin . Infact more that that , the humanitarian that Dickens is , he is determined to expose the plethora of social ills . He has exposed the sufferings of persons , who are the victims of chancery court , circumlocution office ,lack of love in office and ' law's delay'.

MAIN CHARACTERS OF THE NOVEL