Bleak House

Having read the opening chapter of ‘Bleak House’, we become aware of the appropriate ‘Bleak’ mood that Dickens has created by analizing such aspects like his description of London and the chancery. Like the opening of ‘Great Expecations’, we are presented with a dreary scene, this scene, however is set in the city. Beginning with London,we learn of the ‘Implacable November weather’ which instantly composes a dismal, unforgiving atmosphere.

The weather cannot be appeased, soothed or satisfied or cannot be made quiet to a state of peace. The smoke: “lowering down from chimney pots” is: “making a soft black drizzle, mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. ” Dickens implies that all life has ended due to the death of the sun. The people of London have no aspirations for the future, everything is just one big ‘repeat’. Dickens makes the contrast of the white pure snowflakes and the dirty soot. Even the smoke from the chimney pots express a gloomy existence.

It seems like the city has gone back in time, London has an uncivilised nature just like the moors in ‘Great Expectations’. Even the ‘dogs are indistinguishable in mire’. We are unable to identify the dogs similar to the lawsuit. Dickens presents London as a discouraging place to be. Everything is bleak. The lawsuit is alike an infectious disease that all of London, even non-human beings have caught. Dickens creates an extremely miserable confusing portrait of London, its people and its aspects.