***The Novel***
post 2

So finally, our class has reached the end of Bleak House. I felt like we'd never get to the end of it. As long as the novel is, I feel like it was a good choice to coincide with our travels to London and gardens elswhere. I don't intend to focus on one passage in particular here, but rather on the conclusion of the novel as a whole.
After finishing the book, I've come to have a deeper appreciation for Dickens. As the novel drew to a close, he had to wrap up many loose ends. I hadn't realized while reading the book exactly how many characters he had written in. There are over 50. The great thing I've noticed about Dickens in hindsight is that he had an amazing ability to keep up with all of the characters, and to give them each such color and life that you feel like you really know them well, even if they only appeared in the novel for a short time. I realized this as in the last few chapters, he (through Esther's narrative mostly) tells us how characters such as Sir Leicester, Charley, Caddy and Mr. Turveydrop end up. What's interesting is that we as readers actually even care to know. That's what I mean when I say he has given these more minor characters color and interesting qualities so that even the most minor person deserves a small conclusion to their role in the novel.
The other main thing I noticed in finishing Bleak House was the continuance of shattered child/parents relations, which we also discussed in class. Dickens starts us off with the sad story of young Esther, having never known her mother. We then progress to the scene in which Esther is reestablished with her mother, yet she is told she can never see her again. Finally, Volumina dies and Esther is truly motherless in every sense of the word. Other examples include Charley and her brother in their lack of parents, Caddy's completely emotionally absent mother in her life, and Jo's lack of parents. The closest thing he had to a father figure was probably Captain Hawdon, who died as well. Then we have the sad and irritating story of Rick and Ada and their child. I've never been so irritated with a character in a novel as much as I was with Rick; Dickens led me to expect more from him initially. What a disappointment, and thus he continued this strain of ruined parent/child relations by leaving his unborn child fatherless. I will say that the only really successful relationship of the sort is between Mr. Jarndyce and Esther. We all thought it was to be ruined as well with their marriage looming in the distance. I think most people who read the book were disheartened by the idea and we didn't want things to change between Jarndyce and Esther because they have such a good and honest dynamic- one of the only honest ones in the novel, aside from Esther's love for Woodcourt. However, he knew he well enough to figure it out, and Mr. Jarndyce certainly pulled through as my favorite character in the novel when he made the surprising twist in giving Esther to Allan Woodcourt. He truly did have her best interests at heart, and it truly did make him happy to see her happy.
Again, in conclusion I now appreciate Dickens' ability to have so many characters and to have so many interestin connecting points between them. His interweaving of the story between characters from the city and the country is masterful and touching, and I'm glad to have read this novel.