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Personification
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Key Examples in Bleak House
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Lawyers Talking:
Dickens satirizes the circular, expensive, and apparently useless task of lawyers speaking to one another about Jarndyce and Jarndyce in his hyperbolic commentary about the Court of Chancery. This begins in Chapter 1, where he describes the long history of the case:
The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, without knowing how or why [...]
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Imaginary Africa:
Bleak House makes several references to what Dickens calls "telescopic philanthropy" ("charity" from a great, great distance) in a fictional area of Africa. When describing Mrs. Jellyby in Chapter 4—the focus of most of this satirical commentary—Mr Kenge tells Esther she is:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘[...] a lady of very remarkable strength of character, who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects, at various times, and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa; with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry – and the natives – and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid in any work that is considered likely to be a good work, and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs Jellyby.’
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Explanation and Analysis—A Neglected Dwelling:
When Esther and her friends visit the Jellybys in Chapter 4, their house is almost cartoonishly poorly maintained, although the adults in it are well-meaning do-gooders. Dickens uses the careless Mrs. Jellyby to satirize the Victorian British attitude to international charity and philanthropy, describing a dinner at their house through Esther's eyes:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Soon after seven o’clock we went down to dinner; carefully, by Mrs Jellyby’s advice; for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was almost raw [...] Mrs Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee all the evening [and] held a discussion with Mr Quale; of which the subject seemed to be [...] the Brotherhood of Humanity; and gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments[...]
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Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Nothing Sold in Chancery:
Dickens uses imagery to compare Mr. Krook's "rag and bone" shop to Lincoln's Inn in Chapter 5, drawing a direct comparison between the uselessness and disorganization of both places. When Mr. Krook explains why he is "called among the neighbors the Lord Chancellor," he says:
Unlock with LitCharts A+the neighbours think (but they know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that’s why they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust and must and cobwebs. And all’s fish that comes to my net. And I can’t abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my neighbours think, but what do they know?) or to alter anything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on about me. That’s the way I’ve got the ill name of Chancery. I don’t mind.
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Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—A Limited Opinion:
In Chapter 15, Dickens satirizes the "benefits" of the impenetrably slow legal process as a way to control the working class. Mr. Skimpole earnestly explains to Esther that before Gridley got stuck in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce debacle, he imagined the younger man had been merely
Unlock with LitCharts A+wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon [...] when the Court of Chancery came in his way, and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but, as it was, he and the Court of Chancery had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way [...] and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided for.
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Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Unpleasant Entertainment:
Dickens satirizes the uncaring attitude of the wealthy by describing disasters in the slum as if they're public spectacles. In Chapter 16, when the narrator is enumerating the many perils of Tom-All-Alone's, they explain that:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Twice, lately, there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the springing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone’s; and, each time, a house has fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers, and have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain, and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone’s may be expected to be a good one.
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Chapter 30
Explanation and Analysis—Miss Wisk:
In Chapter 30, Dickens satirizes the Victorian image of the campaigner for women's rights as being unpleasant, self-righteous, and uninformed. Describing Miss Wisk in Chapter 30, Esther notes that:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Miss Wisk’s mission, my guardian said, was to show the world that woman’s mission was man’s mission; and that the only genuine mission, of both man and woman, was to be always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings.
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Chapter 40
Explanation and Analysis—The State of the Nation:
Dickens begins Chapter 40—a climactic section of the novel—with a piece of hyperbolic satire. England, it seems, has been totally thrown off balance by a disagreement between two Lords:
Unlock with LitCharts A+England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn’t come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no Government.
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