-
Essay / The Role of Metaphorical Illness in Dickens' Dark House
"I have the honor to appear regularly in court. With my documents. I await judgment. Shortly. Judgment day." Bleakhouse. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayIn a novel so intensely devoted to exposing the real and real misery of its characters, very little arises from the literal application of frequent terms. episodes of illness alone. Illness and apocalyptic imagery are certainly present - Esther's disfigurement by smallpox, Joe's fatal pestilential disease, Caddy's child being born deaf and mute, Miss Flite's "Judgment Day", the burning of Krook, Tom-all-Alone's "revenge", the untimely death of Richard Carstone literally. from grief and exhaustion, to the metaphorical "floodgates" and real-life strokes of Sir Leicester Dedlock - but this endless series of tragedies tends to end rather than augur the wider metaphorical illness that afflicts all characters in the same way, regardless of their social status or economic strength. lacking the means of a speedy and efficient justice system, and in the complicated plot of the novel with its dozens of characters enveloped by adultery, blackmail, murder and much fog and mud that characterize the turgid moral atmosphere , the Court of Chancery becomes the largest payer of illness, disease and death. From its first sentences, this institution of justice is linked to the symbols of obfuscation - fog and mud: "There can never be fog too thick, never mud and mud too deep to accommodate the he state of groping and floundering which characterizes this High Court of Chancery, the most pestilential of hoary sinners, stands today... "But the Court is not only blind and ineffective in serving the cause of justice. His work is much more sinister: “It is the Court of Chancery... which gives monetary power the means to abundantly exhaust the law; which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope; which thus overthrows the brain and breaks the heart; that there is not an honorable man among its practitioners who would not give the warning: "Suffer all the harm that can be done to you, rather than come hither!" » » Clearly, the corrupt and life-destroying Court of Chancery doesn't mean much. He is interested in justice and even more in doing “...business for oneself. There is no other principle clearly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turns.” That "Jarndyce and Jarndyce" bears a close phonetic resemblance to the puzzling panopticon term "John Doe" may not be mere coincidence, but actually an indication that Jarndyce's interminable courtroom imbroglio can easily turn in a situation that will fatally affect just about everyone, from Gridleys to Dedlocks. Entire generations were certainly born there, while others died from it. As pernicious as the most serious illnesses, lawyers and the legal system are depicted as physical embodiments of parasitic diseases that, as the deaths of Gridley and Richard prove, consume everything that passes in their path. Tulkinghorn is depicted as "a dark, cold object" and "machine-like" who jealously guards aristocratic family secrets and has become wealthy by administering marriage settlements and wills. Mr. Vholes looks at Richard predatorily, "as if feasting on him with his eyes as well as his professional appetite." “Generally speaking,” said George,“I oppose race.” This inhumane parasitism extends through society to characters like the Smallweeds of whom “God was compound interest.” [Their patriarch] lived for it, married it, died for it,” and who are also variously described as animals of prey such as “a silver.” -obtain species of spiders, which weave webs to catch unwary flies. The connection between the Chancery lawyers and the Smallweeds as social parasites is made precise by the analogy of "lawyers [who] lie like maggots in nuts" and Mr Smallweed's grandfather who only appreciated the “larvae” and “never raised a single butterfly.” It is revealed that the notorious slum of Tom-all-Alone, "a ruined place... a swarm of squalor [where] decadence is far advanced" is also a Chancery property, which is part of the case Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and indeed the narrator claims that the trial itself "had devastated the street". Thus the heart of the Jarndyce affair, which is the heart of the Chancery, is that of Tom-all-Alone, a place of decadence, misery, and disease The third-person narrator skillfully connects these three worlds through complex plot and language from the beginning and continues to intensify these connections throughout The Mystery. Dedlock and the Chancery affair each suck in and consume those who don't know or don't want to, and expand to affect not only the lives of major parties or willing snoopers, but also those of onlookers like Jo, Snagsby, George and Boythorn. Esther's childhood and her mother's marriage take place in dark houses; Jo lives among the ruined buildings that are themselves part of the legacy of Jarndyce's house; the curtains in Jellyby's chaotic lodgings are pinned with forks; and the legal, judicial, and political systems each seem locked in their own bizarre routines of circular repetition. Miss Flite, Gridley and Richard form the inner circle of this pervasive system of disease, decay and death which demonstrates "the human waste and suffering generated by the Court." But Jo is also a victim of both the Chancery and of society in general, only Miss Flite is still alive at the novel's denouement, her madness providing ironic protection against the greater madness of the Chancery But her collection of caged birds (to which she adds. later "the two wards of Jarndyce"), symbolizing the victims of the Chancery, and his many premonitory comments are omens of Richard's fate. And his concern with the "Great Seal" suggests that in this society, the. True justice can only be achieved in the afterlife ("I await judgment. Soon. Judgment Day. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in Revelation is the Great Seal. It is open. for a long time!”) The same goes for Gridley who is indignantly indignant. against "the system" of the Chancery and the vows "I will accuse the individual workers of this system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar." Yet Gridley's impotent rage only hastens his death. The deadly effects of the injustice that infects Bleak House society can be seen most vividly in the portrayals of various key characters. The descriptions of Krook and his rag and bottle store are meant to function as a dark moral parallel to the Lord Chancellor and the Chancellorship. Mr. Krook attests: “I have so many old parchments and papers in my stock. And I have a penchant for rust and must and cobwebs...And I can't bear to part with anything once I've taken possession of it or,. 1982.