Symbols and Satire in "Bleak House"

Paper Summary:

The paper describes how Dickens, in "Bleak House", employs the neighborhood, the building, the store and its wares and the character of Mr. Krook himself, as caricatured reflections of the court of Chancery and the Lord Chancellor. In particular, the paper portrays how the use of Mr. Krook as a counterpoint to the High Chancellor allows Dickens to satirize and mock the court of Chancery.

From the Paper:

"Additionally, both the Lord Chancellor and Krook are creatures of habit and resistant to change; the chancery suits over which the Lord Chancellor presides are intentionally extended and artificially lengthened by both the barristers on either side of the court case and the Lord Chancellor himself, so as to increase their legal fees, and thus are plodding, almost never-ending affairs which work against change as hard as possible; change is in fact against their best interest, as the faster the suit gets resolved the less pay they get. Their entire existence depends upon their ability to create their own work, as it were, by taking a simple chancery suit and turning it into a "perennially hopeless" quagmire (17). Krook, in the same fashion, is very hesitant to change his ways, or the things around him: "I can't abear ... to alter anything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing done around me" (70). This goes so far as to stop Krook, nominally a store-owner who profits from the sale of things, from ever parting with any of his possessions."

More papers on Symbols and Satire in "Bleak House":

• Book Review # 109702 : "The Significance of Jo in "Bleak House"."
• Analytical Essay # 49068 : "Romance and Satire in "As You Like It"
• Dissertation or Thesis # 147391 : "Symbols and Ambiguities in Nabokov's "Lolita"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: