Narrative Method and Point of View in Bleak Houe
Graduation Date
Fall 1977
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
Bleak House, like most of Dickens's novels, was originally published as a monthly serial. Each month, from March 1852 until August 1853, a new number consisting - thirty-two pages divided into three or four chapters was issued. The final double number XIX/XX, consisting of eight chapters, appeared in September 1853, The installment divisions were: I, chs. 1-4; II, 5-7; III, 8-10; IV, 11-13; V, 14-16; VI, 17-19; VII, 20-22; VIII, 23-25; IX, 26-29; X, 30-32; XI, 33-35; XII, 36-38; XIII, 39-42; XIV, 43-46; XV, 47-49; XVI, 50-53; XVII, 54-56; XVIII, 57-59; XIX/XX, 60-67.1
The story of Bleak House is told through two distinct narratives. Thirty-three of its sixty-seven chapters are narrated in the past tense, first person, by a young woman, Esther Summerson. Her chapters occupy 464 of the 880 pages of the Oxford Illustrated edition and appeared in all but five of the original twenty serial numbers; Number XII consisted entirely of her narration.
The remaining thirty-four chapters, which occupy 614 pages of the Oxford Illustrated edition, are narrated anonymously, usually in the third person, past tense, This narration appeared as part of every serial number except the twelfth; Numbers VII, IX, XIII, XV, and XVII consisted entirely of this narration.
The narrative method of Bleak House has inspired quantity of critical literature which is as various as it is plentiful; yet the basic assumption that the dual narrative automatically indicates only two major view points in the novel has gone unquestioned. My primary purpose in this discussion is to challenge that assumption by providing textual evidence that there is a third major Point of view and, through investigating the narrative method as a whole, to consider the significance of that third point of view in the structure of the novel.