The Equity of Esther Summerson

Revisiting the Dickensian echo of the HBO TV series The Wire:

“…Sometimes, he altered the spelling of a surname in order to disguise its meaning. This is true of Esther Summerson (summer sun) in Bleak House, a character that -personifies true equity shining like the summer's sun through the legal and other institutional fogs of the novel‖ (Watt, 2009). On other occasions, two adjectives were and used to form a proper name.…”

Esther Summerson’s Biblical Judgment: Queen Esther and the Fallen Woman in Bleak House

“…For Watt, writing for a law journal, Queen Esther is significant as a figure of equity, a concept which links fore and surname as Dickens has created through her a "dynamic contrast between the documentary obscurity of the law and clarity of daylight." 11 Watt argues that, as Queen Esther averts the deathly blow of Haman's edict, so Esther Summerson repeatedly softens the blow of judgment on others, making her "a moderating influence to deflect the power of legal formalism from causing harm to the innocent." 12 Esther enacts equity, then, through her personal influence that elevates the individual case above the deadly letter of the law.…”

“…Watt explains the workings of law in Esther's story: "The process was equitable -not destroying the first law, but moderating its force." 50 But Queen Esther's significance is more profound than Watt's localization of her influence allows. For Watt Esther is a figure of moderation, where equity is understood as "closely akin to Aristotle's notion of epieideia, which does not seek to overthrow general rules but seeks to modify them by resisting their unjust application in individual cases."…”

“…Judgment is aligned with discernment in the court of Chancery, which, as Watt notes, was not a criminal court but one that dealt with the judgment of fair practice in which the Chancellor was supposed to discern between opposing claims. 53 The Court of Chancery therefore acted as a bureaucratic and enlarged version of everyday acts of discernment. The fatality of judgment without mercy is personified in Tulkinghorn, whose name draws on the term "tulk," meaning "sound," to invoke the biblical phrase, "sounding horn," the shofar of the Day of Atonement, the blast that closes the fast on Yom Kippur.…”