Charles Dickens's Social Disillusionment And Domestic Triumph

This thesis makes a study of the disillusionment and hope expressed in Bleak House. Itis one of Charles Dickens's novels of social criticisms. Though Dickens was radical aboutsocial reforms in his twenties, the author in Bleak House does not place hope on social orinstitutional reforms. Instead, there is hope in the ideal domesticity, which serves as asurrogate reform and reflects the novelist's exploration of how life should be lived in thechanging world. The resort to the domestic life, the improvement of each individual and thefulfillment of each one's responsibility at home functions as the remedy of time. Taking thehistorical background into consideration, the thesis, in the first chapter, focuses on thecriticisms made in Bleak House, in which the use of apocalyptic language in the narrativeindicates the novelist's disillusionment with the social reforms. Then, the paper points outthat the novelist constructs the hope for a domestic sphere separated from the social evils.Within the sphere, benevolence, self-sacrifice and brotherly love between human beings arehighly valued. Finally, the paper analyzes the reason and the significance of the constructionof ideal domesticity.