BLEAK HOUSE”, Chapters 2-5

The aim of the lesson is to analyse the author’s attitude to his characters and explain how the character determines the plot development.

1. Sum up the information bringing it to a logical close in your own way:

Dickens’ sympathy for his heroes, where it came into play, was intense. But he could turn it off as a child turns off his sympathy from the strange adults whose lives he cannot penetrate and that therefore seem meaningless to him. That is the secret of his satirical method of dealing with officials and narrow professional men, fashionable people and bigwigs generally. Everyone who fell into routine, who seemed to act inexpressively and with no sense of the fun of life, was turned by him into a marionette. Thus, in the first five chapters of “Bleak House”……

2. In Chapter II we are introduced to the world of fashion – to Sir Leicester Dedlock and Lady Dedlock, of whom the author invariably speaks as “My Lady Dedlock” as if he were speaking in her presence or as if he were a servant of hers. We also get acquainted with Mr.Tulkinghorn, ‘the steward of the legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar of the Dedlocks.”

a) What do we come to know about the characters’ lives and relationship which may be relevant to the further development of the plot?

b) What is Dickens’ attitude to his characters? Does he treat them with reverence due to their social position? with disgust? with a sense of alienation? with sympathy? with a good-natured laugh? What details mist vividly betray Dickens’ attitude to his characters?

3. Chapters 3-5 are related to one of the principal characters of the novel – Esther Summerson, and Dickens’ attitude to her is manifested immediately. What traits of character can be easily discerned behind Esther’s actions and her way of seeing and telling things to the reader? (You may select among the following and add others. Prove your opinion by details!)

*** naive, practical, shy, bold, intimidated, affectionate, wise, (in)sensitive, observant, compassionate…

4. Dickens caught and rendered people in the way children see grown-ups. People never seem ordinary to a child: they are sometimes absurdly comic, sometimes terrifying, sometimes both at once, etc. The very notion of ordinary is foreign to a child, to whom everything encountered is unique. Dickens catches with merciless delight the externals, the apparently meaningless gestures and nervous tricks we all have without knowing we have them; and he catches, too, the habits of speech, repetitions of favourite words and phrases which, taken together, make us in some degrees walking caricatures of ourselves.

Analyse the way Dickens presents Mrs.Jellyby as a personality. On what does he concentrate chiefly: her appearance? manners? dialogue? Does he offer any direct comment on her personality? Is Dickens’ description of Mrs.Jellyby strictly objective and matter-of-fact or is it highly imaginative? What images catch the eye? What stylistic devices does he mainly employ?

5. What features typical of Dickens’ manner of writing are manifested in the beginning chapters of the novel?

Appendix to “Bleak House”, Chapters 1, 2. Give the original for the following phrases:

· Это застывший (отмирающий мир) и … болезненный, ибо в нём нечем дышать It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air

· Куда она отправится потом, еще неизвестно after which her movements are uncertain

· всеведущая великосветская хроника the fashionable intelligence

· (в Линкольншире) настоящий потоп The waters are out in Lincolnshire.

· это вывело её из душевного равновесия has been put quite out of temper

· строгих правил of strict conscience

· презирающий всё мелочное и низменное disdainful of all littleness and meanness

· готовый скорее умереть, нежели дать основания для малейших сомнений в своей безупречности ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity

· Ему уже за 65, у него приступы подагры He will never see sixty-five again He has a twist of the gout

· рыцарская учтивость gallantry

· она не родовита she had not even family

· одарена честолюбием и дерзновенной решительностью she has insolent resolve

· богатство и положение, в сочетании с этими качествами, помогли ей подняться в высшие сферы Wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her upward

· утомленное самообладание, невозмутимость усталости An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity

· она безукоризненно воспитана She is perfectly well-bred

· лицо, приобретшее классическую правильность a face improved into classicality

· её фигура производит впечатление высокой her figure has the effect of being tall

Find the high-flown adequates for these neutral words and expressions:

stay or live with…(reside),

disappear in no time, (vanish dexterously).

make a speech, (deliver)

make sure it’s the best thing to do (satisfy oneself),

to finish (an argument), (conclude)

Talking about (this or that),…(in reference to…).;

(satisfy oneself…expediency…; in reference to…, reside.., deliver…, conclude…, vanish dexterously).

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