The Ontology of Esther's Narrative in "Bleak House"

Moseley, Merritt

doi:10.2307/3199233

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Esther Summerson is the supreme connector of Bleak House ; she is the novel’s great glue. In her role as co-narrator she ‘must “trot” around, make friends with an astonishing number of people, and be in surprising places, to keep us informed’ (Moseley, 1985, p. 36). It has been said that Dickens:‘establishes Esther Summerson and the omniscient narrator as observers of a city which ideally should be a coherent structure of human relationships, but actually is, like the law, a murky labyrinth of elusive and hidden connections.’(Burke, 1969, p. 659)In fact, Esther is no mere observer.…”

Section: The Characters Of Bleak House As Exemplars Of Connectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The character of social connection in law and literature: lessons fromBleak House

Watt

2009

International Journal of Law in Context

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This paper argues that law and society are disconnected in practice, and that this is attributable, in part, to law’s disconnection from the arts and humanities in our schemes of formal education. When we draw out the legal yarn from its cultural fabric, we find that it is remarkably thin. It is especially inadequate to describe the complexity of human interconnection, and even lacks a language to express such commonplace connections as unmarried romantic cohabitation and non-profit clubs. To understand human interconnection and the law’s connection to society, we must read the law ‘in context’ – as being one fabric, one textile, with other literatures – and we must read with an appropriate ethic. To that end, this paper reads the law in the context of Dickens’s Bleak House, which has been called ‘a novel of connections’, and Forster’s Howards End, which exhorts us to ‘connect the prose and the passion’.

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Section: The Characters Of Bleak House As Exemplars Of Connectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The character of social connection in law and literature: lessons fromBleak House

Watt

2009

International Journal of Law in Context

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The Equity of Esther Summerson

Watt

2009

Law and Humanities

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The Broken Mirror: Maternal Agency and Identity in Charles Dickens's Bleak House

Cash¹

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This paper examined how Esther Summerson, Dickens's ideal good mother, can be understood as a woman who has maternal agency and identity both as a character and as a narrator, and how she contrasts with other maternal characters in the novel, both major and minor. While more transgressive mothers, such as Lady Dedlock, Mrs. Jellyby and even Krook's cat, are doomed to death, ineffectiveness and madness, Esther moves from a frozen, "unsexualized" state into a space of life and sexual possibility. In addition, Esther has agency and identity as a narrator since she shares the narration with a thirdperson male narrator. Esther becomes the one who speaks rather than the one who is spoken of, and her maternal, nurturing voice provides a balm for the often harsh, judgmental voice of the male narrator. As the narrator's patriarchal voice dies away at the end, it is Esther's maternal voice that survives. vi

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The Ontology of Esther's Narrative in "Bleak House"

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

The character of social connection in law and literature: lessons fromBleak House

The character of social connection in law and literature: lessons fromBleak House

The Equity of Esther Summerson

The Broken Mirror: Maternal Agency and Identity in Charles Dickens's Bleak House

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