In
Bleak House, the writing alternates between first and third person.
The unidentified third person and the first person is narrated by
Esther. The language of the narration in the third person is able to
describe the other characters mannerisms but fails to explain how
they became the characters they are and how their lives developed.
This kind of narration describes the actions of characters and does
so in a theatrical way. When Esther narrates, she explains to the
reader such pretenses and incorporates her own thoughts and ideas.
She adds her own tone and personality when she narrates including her
modesty. The dialog between the characters is a direct reflection of
their own personalities and from the dialog one can directly identify
the background of a character.
2)
“With this
unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied by action
illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil Squod
shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly
tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head,
intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to clear
away the breakfast.”
"My
dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might
cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. Curse
him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the
trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me
money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering
place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her
head off."
3)
The dialog between the characters not necessarily authentic in the
sense that they would speak to each other in such a way. The
characters have a few exaggerated characteristics which makes them
almost one dimensional. Due to this it does not seem such
conversations would actually take place.
"Well,
I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never pretend to be
anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only put him where
he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you know. Even
make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or five
shillings, or five pound ten—you are arithmeticians, and I am
not—and get rid of him” -Mr Skimpole (chpt31)
"William
Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this
unbearably dull, suicidal room—and old Boguey downstairs, I
suppose."-Mr. Weevle
"Therefore
you may happen to have in your possession something—anything, no
matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, anything—in
Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his writing with some
that I have. If you can give me the opportunity, you shall be
rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five, guineas, you would
consider handsome, I dare say."- Mr. Tulkinghorn (chpt27)
"Why,
sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion,
I am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in
Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand
any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr.
Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of
this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my
sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at
the present moment." –Mr George (chpt 27)
"Oh!
Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we
might get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so
before Prince, he only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you
have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband,
but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had
better murder him than marry him—if you really love him.'"
Caddy Jellyby (chpt30)
4)
Economic
“It
seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his
bankruptcy—"gone through the Gazette," was the expression
Caddy used, as if it were a tunnel—with the general clemency and
commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in
some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had
given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should
think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied
every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man.”(chpt30)
“Service,
however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not
profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they
visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live
but shabbily when they can't, and find—the women no husbands, and
the men no wives—and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts
that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The
rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the
something over that nobody knows what to do with.” (chpt28)
"No,
my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let
you alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a
toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are
become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so
employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your
profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young
friend, sit upon this stool."(chpt25)
"Why,
then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very worthy,
much older—five and twenty years, perhaps—than yourself. And you
will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy."
Chpt 30
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