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vividness and reality of the emotion experienced by David Copper-
field in his courtship of Dora' 'strike the reader as bookmaking
rather than creation'. She does not make clear why the relation
ship between father and son 'is one of the most difficult of
human relationships to represent', more difficult, that is, than
that between other parents and children, of which she does mention
satisfactory examples. Her survey, however, does suggest something
of the vastness of the subject.
2.Robert A. Donovan, 'Structure and Idea in Bleak HouseJournal of
English Literary History, XXiX, 1962, p 199.
3.W.J. Harvey, 'Bleak House, in Dickensed. A.EDyson, Modern
Judgements Series, London, 1969, pp 212-3
4.Leonard W. Deen, 'Style and Unity in "Bleak House" Criticism
III, 1961, p 207
5.Philips Collins, A Critical Commentary on Dickens's "Bleak House"',
Macmillan, London, 1971, p 37.
6.Donovan pp 184/187
7.That this is the main theme of the novel is aknowledged by most
critics, e.g. Donovan, p 177.'The main theme of Bleak House is
responsibility', cf. J. Hillis Miller, who talks about 'the universal
abnegation us responsibility' in the novel, which turns its characters
into 'helpless victims' of 'a vast mechanical system', Charles Dickens
The World of His Novels, Harvard Un. Press, Cambridge, 1958 p. 207.
Our examination of parent-child relations will lead to the same
conclusion.
8.Pagenumbers refer to the Penguin edition, ed. Norman Page,
Harmondsworth1971.
9.This, to me, is one of the very few flaws of the story; the effect of
the harsh and cold upbringing by her Godmother is conquered too
easily by Esther. This upbringing results in two things: an almost
unconquerable feeling of inferiority which is presented in a not
very convincing way; and an urge to bring happiness to others which
we are supposed to approve of. The latter seems too favourable a
consequence from a frown which 'to the very last, and even after
wards, remained unsoftened' (Ch 3, 67).
10.This relief, however, is already provided by the distorted characters
themselves. People have complained that the amount of distorsion is
rather unpleasantly high. But the description of, for instance,
the Smallweed Family, called 'horrible' by A.EDyson, Dickens
Bleak House, A Casebook ed. by A.E. Dyson, Nashville 1970, p. 248,
is so irresistibly funny that the passages in which it occors
remain a joy to reread. Nor do I agree with Dyson that 'Tulking-
horn is among the two or three most sinister figures Dickens ever ever
drew' (248); is is determined in the realization of his objects, but
his cool, calculating manner is always straightforward and rather
than suddenly and silently creeping in on Lady Dedlock he usually
lets her wait quite some time when she expects him.
11.Donovan p. 186
