ENGL 510: The City in the 19th Century

                Throughout Bleak House, a story very much concerned with lords and ladies and heirs, I could not help being struck by the children in the story who are so often neglected by everyone until they can be of some use.  I am reminded of Gavroche in Les Miserables, a book almost contemporary with Bleak House.  Gavroche is a larger-than-life character with far more agency than Jo.  He lives almost entirely on street smarts, yet he has practically raised himself, having been put out by his parents, the Thenardiers.  In the story, Gavroche, having found out that his father was trapped during a jailbreak and faces imminent recapture, immediately runs to the rescue of his father and, after successfully saving him, is entirely ignored.  After impatiently waiting for some recognition, he runs off claiming that he has to look after his children.  These children, however, have no relationship to Gavroche.  In fact, he meets them only the day before.  This subtle condemnation of those responsible for the poor reappears in Mary Barton and in Bleak House.  Throughout all three stories, assistance from the poor often comes from other poor people due to the suffering they share.  The consequences often include the suffering of children like the Wilson twins in Mary Barton whose parents are unable to help them while the factory owners, the patriarchs of Manchester, are unwilling to help at all.

                This tendency is intensified in Bleak House as children are not only neglected, but like Gavroche, they are also placed in parent-like conditions.  The children who can hardly support themselves sacrifice their scant resources to support others.  In chapter 15, Esther and Mr. Jarndyce meet Charley, a young orphan girl who takes care of her two siblings after the death of their parents.  While she has some assistance in that she does not need to pay rent, it is still her responsibility to feed the younger children.  Esther tells us that “the little orphan girl had spoken of their father, and their mother, as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling busy way” (247).  The little girl is empowered to some extent by her ability to work.  She becomes a mother figure, unable to indulge even in grief because of the necessity of being a provider.  This sets her in opposition to some of the childlike characters in the book like Richard, who squanders all of his money, and especially Skimpole, who leeches off of others and dodges his debts.  Still, Charley’s relative helplessness, despite her complete eagerness to work and provide, is highlighted by the fact that she is allowed to keep their home without paying rent and benefits from Esther taking her as a maid.

                Jo is perhaps an even more heroic character.  He is also empowered to some extent.  He seems usually able to make enough to support himself by sweeping; also, despite his persistent claim that he “don’t know nothink”, Jo seems always to have a scrap of information to sell.  He is always in the know about the things that the primary characters of the book need to know, and this is a marketable commodity.  Like Charley, he is able to provide and produce, but unlike her, he has no one who relies on him.  However, even Jo is willing to provide for others who have no relation to him.  When Snagsby and Detective Bucket are searching or Joe in an attempt to discover the identity of the woman whom Jo led to the cemetery, they find that he has been on an errand to get medicine for Liz, a poor woman who has fallen ill (362).  As he only recently received a gold coin for leading Lady Dedlock to the cemetery, it is probable that he spent this money on the sick woman.  While Mary Barton places all of the working class in the charge of their neglectful capitalist parents, Bleak House inverts this relationship.  Instead, the poorest of the poor are put in parenting rules, but these responsibilities seem futile.  While children like Charley and Jo are able to provide, it always seems that sympathy holds them back.  Because they cannot ignore the plight of others, they remain stuck in the same plight themselves.