All of the
characters who are in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House have been greatly influenced
by the Victorian Era. Many of the situations with the impoverished are
accurately portrayed by Dickens. For example, when he describes the Jellyby
household, it shows how lower class families had difficulty providing for their
many children for one reason or another. Dickens makes the Jellyby household different
with Mrs. Jellyby’s obsession with Africa, but it has much in common with any
other overcrowded house.
Furthermore, the
experience of growing up in a poverty stricken home also affects the children.
For instance, Caddy does not have many friends other than Esther and Ada. One
of the reasons is the fact that she is forced to do her mother’s bidding. It is
symbolic of how class dictates how one lives. One is wealthy they have many
people to attend to them, many friends. With poor people, few friends and
family is all they have.
Last of all, we
see Jo who considered to be a normal orphan. He goes from place, uneducated
like many orphans and has nobody to look after him. Orphans in the Victorian
era were often seen on the streets and did not have anyone to look after them
other than themselves or any siblings. They would have their little dwellings
such as a dock or some other place on the streets, which Dickens manifests in
Tom All Alone’s. This is how the characters in the street in Bleak House have been
shaped by Victorian England.
Michael Uhl
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