Bleak House: Satire 8 key examples

Jarndyce and Jarndyce is so entangled and moribund that discussion by lawyers only worsens matters. The more lawyers who participate, the worse it gets. Rather than solving problems, involving lawyers seems to have only increased the confusion, as Dickens tells the reader that "the parties to it understand it least." Because it's so confusing, and because British property law is so complex, when lawyers get involved in discussing the case it merely multiplies the problem. The fact that this lack of progress  is taken as normal throughout the novel forms a substantial part of the satirical commentary of Bleak House. Within the book, it seems, no one expects lawyers to speed things up by practicing the law.

Dickens's hyperbolic language is very exaggerated here: "five minutes" is all it takes to confuse even the most qualified lawyers in London, but the case itself is never-ending. "Innumerable" people have apparently lived and died as the case has proceeded. The arguments the lawyers have made surrounding it are so preposterously all-encompassing that it seems almost anyone could be sucked into it, "without knowing how or why." The case is so confusing it actually maddens people, who "deliriously" find themselves stuck in it, never to get out.

Mrs Jellyby's "general" interest in Africa is a satirical reference to the vague way the British public were educated about the British Empire, and also satirizes the figure of the ignorant do-gooder whose life is oriented "toward the public." It should be noted here that Mrs. Jellyby isn't devoted to charity but to the "subject" of Africa. She doesn't actually care about the people, just the idea of doing good things and devoting her time "to the public" so she can be admired. Dickens suggests that she and her friends believe that the "cultivation" of the "natives" and the farming of coffee berries are comparable things. This further dehumanizes the people that Mrs. Jellyby apparently wants to help. The fact that this settlement is in a fictional region of Africa which even Mrs. Jellyby herself can't adequately describe is another comment by Dickens on the weak relationship she actually has with the "charity" aspect of her charity work. She's only interested "until something else attracts her."

By referencing Jarndyce in this description, Dickens also here links the British Chancery courts to the figure of the pompous and ill-informed Mrs Jellyby. This reflects the implementation of British law in its African colonies, which attempted to enforce the "happy settlement" of British colonizers on African land. Jarndyce also has an indirect relationship with the "good" here; the reader is told he aligns himself with "anything that is considered to be good work." In Dickens's satirical voice, it doesn't matter to Jarndyce if the work actually is good. If it's good on paper, that's enough for the lawyers.

Although the Jellybys are not lacking in money—the dinner is "fine," containing expensive meats and desserts—the neglect Mrs. Jellyby shows her household's affairs means that the meal is still inedible and the house inhospitable. As with life in Dickens's contemporary Britain, an abundance of resources doesn't mean a good quality of life if they're mismanaged. Mrs. Jellyby sits in a "nest" of waste-paper holding forth about the "Brotherhood of Humanity" while her children fall over, hurt themselves, and squabble. All of Mrs. Jellyby's "charity" work doesn't stop her children from being badly raised, or her house from being inhospitable and filthy.

Aside from satirizing the figure of the distracted charitable giver, the way Mrs. Jellyby is described is also a critical swipe by Dickens at Queen Victoria. Mrs. Jellyby only cares about goings-on outside her house and outside her country. In a comparable way, Queen Victoria ruled her Empire from a distance while her government in London neglected the affairs of both domestic and colonial subjects. This satire is elevated by the fact that her husband Mr. Jellyby is a silent and sullen presence. This characterless and sidelined figure, absolutely dominated by his wife, is a reference to some of the British public's opinion of Victoria's husband, the Prince Consort Albert. 

Krook's neighbors call his this ramshackle establishment the "Court of Chancery" because it's as overstuffed and unproductive as Dickens's version of the Inns of Court. Referring to Mr. Krook as the "Lord Chancellor" cements the visual image of the chief lawyer himself being another old and foolish man presiding over rubbish, unable to "part with anything" or to "alter anything." 

Visual images of old, dirty things pile on one another in this passage, as Krook describes his "old parchmentses and papers" and lists all the types of cleaning he will not allow. The effect Dickens's language gives is of claustrophobic, inescapable crowding and mess. This links it thematically to the very similar passage describing the "dingy," cramped, "groaning and floundering" rooms of Chancery that begins the novel. 

Esther observes just before this that Krook's shop seems not to actually sell anything at all. It is just a place where "everything is bought." It doesn't do business, it just accumulates broken and useless objects:

In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill, at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In another, was the inscription, BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S WARDROBES BOUGHT [...] pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles: I am reminded by mentioning the latter, that the shop had, in several little particulars, the air of being in a legal neighbourhood, and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of the law.

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 The diction of this passage is quite literally cluttered with visual images of rubbish: "sacks of old rags," "old iron," "pickle bottles," and "wine bottles" populate the writing, making a reader feel the unease and crampedness of being surrounded by garbage. Dickens's diction is also cluttered here, as can be seen in the run-on sentence that ends the passage. In describing the pandemonium of the shop, Esther's speech itself becomes messy and crowded. Her last comment contains so many clauses and nouns it's difficult to understand. 

Through these thorough and visually rich descriptions of Krook's shop, Dickens adds yet another layer of satirical commentary about the mismanagement of Chancery to Bleak House. In this passage, both Lincoln's Inn and Krook's shop are merely Holborn junk emporiums filled with "waste paper."

When discussing the weight that the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case has on Gridley, Skimpole suggests that actually getting embroiled in endless Chancery lawsuits might be very good for some people. Because Gridley is "a man of a robust will, and surprising energy," Skimpole implies that the maddening slowness of Chancery is actually a good way of curbing his ambitious tendencies. It's a positive thing that Gridley was essentially beggared and imprisoned by the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case, as otherwise his combative nature could have made him go around "blowing up all sorts of towns." This argument is nonsensical, but Skimpole's earnest commitment to it is part of Dickens's satire.

For men of leisure like Mr. Skimpole, Chancery and its processes can't be bad: it must be the people who are ruined by them who are in the wrong. In Skimpole's opinion, Chancery's impenetrable paper piles have "provided for" Gridley and prevented him from exceeding his social station through too much success. He can't imagine that people moving out of their class bracket could ever be a good thing.

The "springing" (opening) of a mine is generally met with celebration, as it represents the source of new revenue for a community. That is quite the opposite of what's happening here; beds are "filled" in the nearby hospital with seriously injured people. These accidents don't cause "public outcry," however: instead, they are so commonplace that they only merit "a paragraph" in the newspapers. The tongue-in-cheek language of the "not unpopular lodgings" would seem very insensitive and inappropriate here, were it not for the overtly satirical tone of the passage. Even though it's satirical, Dickens asks the reader to take this situation seriously, as it seems no one else will.

The anticipatory language of "ready to go" strikes a chord between panic and pleasure, as the next disaster is inevitably forthcoming. By "a good one" here, Dickens doesn't mean the crash will be a good thing for the tenants of the "rubbish." The destruction of these houses might be a "good one" for the city as a place that shuns the poor and fears the houseless and destitute, but it's going to be a tragedy for everyone actually living there.

Mr. Jarndyce tells Esther that Miss Wisk believes a "man's mission" and a "woman's mission" are the same thing. Jarndyce then immediately turns this (seemingly quite sensible) idea around, explaining that Wisk also thinks that the only mission anyone should have is to always be making "declaratory resolutions" in public. "Making resolutions" isn't the same as doing anything, of course, although Jarndyce seems to take it seriously. 

This useless campaigning sounds an awful lot like some of the lawyers of Chancery who argue rather than acting, and also like Mrs. Jellyby, whose "charity" towards others means that she neglects her own family. Miss Wisk might be dedicated to her own version of equality for women, but she's still an inhabitant of Chancery Lane, and is apparently as ineffectual as everyone else there.

Dickens goes on in this passage to poke fun at the "meanness" of the "domestic mission" (homemaking). Wisk believes that the idea that a woman belongs in the home is a ridiculous one, but explains it so exaggeratedly that she makes even this rational notion seem unrealistic:

Such a mean mission as the domestic mission, was the very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman’s mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of Home was an outrageous slander on the part of her Tyrant, Man.

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The idea that women should have lives outside the home is of course quite sound. Nonetheless, because Miss Wisk speaks with "great indignation," seems pompous and self-righteous, and exaggeratedly calls "Man" a "Tyrant," her ideas seem silly and her arguments useless. As if to emphasize the fact that the reader shouldn't sympathize with her, all of the descriptive language Dickens is using here is contentious and abrasive. In the narrator's satirical voice, Miss Wisk becomes associated with the words "mean,""narrow,""slander," and "tyrant," even when she applies such language to others.

In this section, the author is employing hyperbole to lampoon the apparent uselessness of aristocratic rule. Dickens establishes that the country is badly run with this description—in fact, it's so poorly run that a petty dispute between two important people can grind Britain completely to a halt.

The Lords Coodle and Doodle are apparently the only people running the country. In fact, in their opinion, they are actually the only people in the country, as without them there is "nobody to speak of." If  they can't do their jobs, Dickens satirically suggests, then there's "nobody" left "to speak of" to rule Britain, and "there has been no Government." The fact that there are literally millions of other people in England doesn't factor into the actions of the Lords. To aristocrats, Dickens implies, the people being governed aren't the point. Coodle and Doodle are so divorced from reality that they actually forget other people exist.

This language is obviously hyperbolic and exaggerated, as the narrator satirizes the aristocracy's skewed view of British society in the "voice" of the Lords Coodle and Doodle. As these characters don't do anything important throughout Bleak House, it's unclear how their dispute would ruin the operations of the country. Through hyperbole the author implies that he doesn't believe the nobility do much, and that the government doesn't care about the citizens it "governs."