Critical Response: The Anticipation!

             

           One thing I thought about a lot as I read Volume VI of Bleak House, was how exciting it must have been each time Dickens released a serial and how the thin booklets must have seemed like such little reading for such an anticipated story. This is something I didn’t thing about very much when reading the larger novel, because the whole story is readily available to me, from beginning and end, without any waiting involved. I see the serial as the equivalent to the anticipation I feel for the next episode of Scandal or Revenge to come on each week.

 The Family Portraits at Mr. Bayham Badger's

 Also, while reading the installment, I realized I enjoy the illustrations more in the original as opposed to the Oxford Classic edition. They seem to be more ingrained into the page and real. When looking at the illustrations in the original copies, I think the details stand out more than in the larger novel. This might be because I’m looking at the illustration in a format that I’m not used to looking at, but I do think there is something interesting and authentic about the illustrations in their original format. Such an example would be the illustration entitled “The Family Portraits at Mr. Bayham Badger’s.” Even in the online edition which has the photo copies of the original, there is a clear difference in the hue of the paper, and I think because of that, it creates the effect of being the original sketch on the page. I think the content of the serial was greatly influenced by the illustrations, as well as the anticipation the serial created, because it added to an already dramatic story. 

- Brittney Cato