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:
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.
Krook's neighbors call his this ramshackle establishment the "Court of Chancery" because it's as overstuffed and unproductive as Dickens's version of the Inns of Court. Referring to Mr. Krook as the "Lord Chancellor" cements the visual image of the chief lawyer himself being another old and foolish man presiding over rubbish, unable to "part with anything" or to "alter anything."
Visual images of old, dirty things pile on one another in this passage, as Krook describes his "old parchmentses and papers" and lists all the types of cleaning he will not allow. The effect Dickens's language gives is of claustrophobic, inescapable crowding and mess. This links it thematically to the very similar passage describing the "dingy," cramped, "groaning and floundering" rooms of Chancery that begins the novel.
Esther observes just before this that Krook's shop seems not to actually sell anything at all. It is just a place where "everything is bought." It doesn't do business, it just accumulates broken and useless objects:
In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill, at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In another, was the inscription, BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S WARDROBES BOUGHT [...] pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles: I am reminded by mentioning the latter, that the shop had, in several little particulars, the air of being in a legal neighbourhood, and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of the law.
The diction of this passage is quite literally cluttered with visual images of rubbish: "sacks of old rags," "old iron," "pickle bottles," and "wine bottles" populate the writing, making a reader feel the unease and crampedness of being surrounded by garbage. Dickens's diction is also cluttered here, as can be seen in the run-on sentence that ends the passage. In describing the pandemonium of the shop, Esther's speech itself becomes messy and crowded. Her last comment contains so many clauses and nouns it's difficult to understand.
Through these thorough and visually rich descriptions of Krook's shop, Dickens adds yet another layer of satirical commentary about the mismanagement of Chancery to Bleak House. In this passage, both Lincoln's Inn and Krook's shop are merely Holborn junk emporiums filled with "waste paper."
When Lady Dedlock learns from Mr. Guppy that Esther's real last name is "Hawdon," she undergoes a ghoulish and visible transformation that paradoxically makes her seem both alive and dead. Dickens uses a simile to describe this state of extreme shock and torpor. After receiving this news, Lady Dedlock appears to Guppy to be
for the moment, dead. He sees her consciousness return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence, and of what he has said [...] her dead condition seem to have passed away like the features of those long-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which, struck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath.
The visual imagery of this horrifying realization is full of delicate, shivering diction. The simile of the tremor passing over Lady Dedlock like a "ripple over water" makes the reader feel the shudder that engulfs her after hearing this portentous news. To Guppy she seems—in this moment—"dead," but the death isn't permanent. Instead, the "death" washes over her like a "ripple of water" before she can compose herself. Like a ripple in a pond, it dissipates quickly, but not before it gives the reader a powerful impression of the (usually cold and stoic) Lady Dedlock's fragility. She teeters on the edge of a breakdown in this passage, seeming to pass out of the world before her consciousness can "return."
Lady Dedlock is usually totally composed, but in this scene Dickens uses visual language to imply that her character has become incredibly brittle, like a corpse decayed to powder and paper in a tomb. To Guppy, the action of cracking her emotional shell seems like it might literally disintegrate her body. When she hears the news, she reminds Guppy of a corpse "struck by the air like lightning," suddenly so fragile she might crumble away. Of course, Lady Dedlock isn't dead or rotted to powder, because she doesn't "vanish in a breath," but this scene underscores just how startling Guppy's revelation is.
Dickens alludes to classical mythology within a simile in Chapter 32, referencing the Greek myth of Argus Panoptes. Describing the visual imagery of the "clogged lamps" of Chancery as being like the endlessly watching eyes of Argus, the narrator says:
From tiers of staircase windows, clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little patches of candle-light reveal where some wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes of sheepskin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an acre of land.
Dickens combines the image of the "clogged lamps" of Equity (the law practiced in Chancery) with the "fathomless pockets" of Argus's hundred eyes. Argus, whose job in Greek legends was to watch carefully over a precious treasure, had the special skill of being able to see everywhere at once. Through Dickens's simile, the court of Lincoln's Inn is also symbolically able to do this, as the law "watches" all aspects of British life. The sensory language of this complex passage is all visual, as it all relates to Dickens's allusion to Argus watching his surroundings.
Despite their many "eyes," Dickens describes the Inns' view of life in Britain as "clogged." Although like Argus it is "hundred-eyed," its vision is "bleared" and it can't see anything clearly. Nothing is simple or easily discernible in the view of the law in Bleak House.
The things that can be "seen" in this passage don't paint a brighter picture of life in London, either. The only "clear" images are those of "draughtsmen" and "conveyancers" working through the night. The windows of the Holborn neighborhood are warmly lit, but the light isn't restful. Instead, each pinpoint of light indicates someone working into the small hours on a mundane task. Rather than enjoying the world, these people are stuck at their desks inside the labyrinth of the law courts, working hard on the "entanglement" of things. As Dickens has related the lights of Chancery to the eyes of Argus, each lit lamp symbolically becomes an "eye" on the worker who uses it. The lights of Lincoln's Inn imprison and guard its workers like Argus, another many-eyed monster.
In Chapter 37, Dickens uses a series of similes to emphasize how totally out of touch Skimpole is with the real goings-on around him, as he describes his own lucky circumstances to the troubled Ada:
‘For I am constantly being taken in these nets,’ said Mr Skimpole, looking beamingly at us [...] ‘and am constantly being bailed out – like a boat. Or paid off – like a ship’s company. Somebody always does it for me. I can’t do it, you know, for I never have any money. But Somebody does it. I get out by Somebody’s means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me who Somebody is, upon my word, I couldn’t tell you. Let us drink to Somebody. God bless him!’
When Skimpole here calmly assures Ada that he will find work for her family and encourages Richard to pursue a Chancery suit, he's totally oblivious to the seriousness of their situation. He centers the narrative around himself, as he has no context for the reality of Ada's problems. In doing so, he compares himself to several different instances of lucky escapes, all of which crudely imply unearned financial help: he somehow gets "bailed out" and "paid off" all the time. His diction is grandiose and expansive: it seems one simile about good luck isn't enough. He has to be a boat and a ship's company and a starling before he is satisfied he has explained how fortunate he is. As Ada and Richard are facing real financial and social problems, this rambling explanation seems even more inappropriate than it might otherwise.
At the end of the passage, Skimpole also makes a coy allusion to divine intervention in his lucky life. He speaks as if he doesn't know he is referring to God when he says he "gets out" of his troubles by "Somebody's means." He then surprisingly confirms that he actually doesn't "know," as he asks God to "bless" the "somebody" who gets him out of his "nets." Skimpole is so blessed, it seems, that he can even get away with blasphemy, and never has to think before he speaks.
