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Mr. Vholes
Mr. Guppy is a young clerk in Mr. Kenge’s office. An ambitious, self-interested man and a social climber, Mr. Guppy cares a great deal about his appearance and reputation and is primarily interested in advancing his social status. Throughout the novel, he serves as a figure of ridicule and a comic relief character. Mr. Guppy meets Esther Summerson when she comes to London and suspects her relation to Lady Dedlock, who is really Esther’s mother, after he sees a portrait of Lady Dedlock at her husband’s country house, Chesney Wold. Mr. Guppy proposes to Esther, because he believes she has noble relations and, when she rejects his offer, makes a dramatic show of being heartbroken and follows her all over the city. He constantly brings up his disappointment with his friends, Mr. Jobling and Bart Smallweed, but only hints at what has happened and never tells them the full story. This is because he likes to draw attention to himself and make himself seem mysterious and important by suggesting that he has confidential links to noble people and influential figures. Mr. Guppy plots against his friends and acquaintances, whom he is often jealous of and suspects of plotting against him. He gets involved with the mystery of Esther’s parentage when he tries to blackmail Lady Dedlock because he thinks that he has found evidence that she is Esther’s mother, in a bundle of letters found in Krook’s shop. Although Mr. Guppy pretends that he wants to help Lady Dedlock conceal her secret, he really wants leverage for himself and thinks that if he helps Esther find her mother, she will be grateful and marry him, which will improve his social connections. Mr. Guppy does not really love Esther, and when he sees her after her illness, her face now scarred by smallpox, he is embarrassed that he proposed and denies his previous attentions to her. However, when, at the end of the novel, it is revealed that Esther is Lady Dedlock’s daughter, Mr. Guppy suddenly wants to marry her again.
Mr. Guppy Quotes in Bleak House
The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Guppy or refer to Mr. Guppy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
Mr Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy’s office, of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, when there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary.
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Chapter 39
Quotes
They gradually discern the elder Mr Smallweed, seated in his chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste paper; the virtuous Judy groping therein, like a female sexton; and Mrs Smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity, snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print and manuscript, which would appear to be the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt, and present a fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room.
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Mr. Guppy Quotes in Bleak House
The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Guppy or refer to Mr. Guppy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
Mr Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy’s office, of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, when there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39
Quotes
They gradually discern the elder Mr Smallweed, seated in his chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste paper; the virtuous Judy groping therein, like a female sexton; and Mrs Smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity, snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print and manuscript, which would appear to be the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt, and present a fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room.
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