The novel’s structure is ideal for exploring the social position of women in the nineteenth century. Of course women had very little control over their lives during the nineteenth century, but to have this little control over one’s life seems a bit extreme, compared to works written by female authors in approximately the same period, such as Jane Austen. She gains so many nicknames that her “own name soon became quite lost among them”. As the novel continues, the identity of Esther seems to disintegrate. She has been raised in this patriarchal society and as a result her own selfhood is in question. In this sense, Esther could be seen as archetypically representative of the Victorian middle-class woman. Even though Esther is one of the main characters of the novel, she has very little control over her own life. In the first few chapters of the novel, Esther’s life is fully controlled by a man, Mister Jarndyce.
Esther had quite happily settled in at Greenleaf and would have been happy to stay there, but then Mister Jarndyce, her mysterious benefactor and guardian sends for Esther so she can become a guardian for Ada Clare, a warden of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. When this woman died, Esther was sent by a mysterious person to Greenleaf, where she was to be educated for 6 years. She was raised by her aunt, whom Esther believed to be her guardian. Guppy for financial support, though they have no familial relation. Most obviously is the fact that every woman is connected to a man in some way. This male perspective is quite obvious in the way some female characters have been created in this novel. It is important to remember, that even though Dickens is a phenomenal writer, he still only offers a one sided perspective to society: the perspective of a man. Her chapters within the novel are meant to show the reader what a man considered to be a woman’s domain”. The thesis statement which will be argued within this work goes as follows: “ Bleak House explores the position of women by giving roughly half of the novel to a female narrator. The central question therefore is: “How does Bleak House explore the social position of women in the nineteenth century?”. This divide is the central subject within this work. This society bears the conventional divide between the genders, as every society does. In this world he has built, society much resembles the time in which Dickens worked and lived, namely, the nineteenth century. For the most part, Dickens is not interested in telling a story, but instead choses to concentrate on building a world inside the novel. Bleak House and the social position of Women.Ĭharles Dicken’s Bleak House is a wonderful, though sometimes a bit lengthy novel.
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