Mary Russell’s Bleak House
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Bleak House world would have been better off without meddling, Dickens is
reinforcing the classism he works in other ways to destroy. By pointing to the
classes as an artificial social construct in showing how easy it is to put on and
take off the clothes of social status, identity, and privilege/lack thereof (in the
actions and personas of characters like Lady Dedlock, Nemo, Richard, Hortense,
Guppy, Mr. George, etc.), Dickens shows us a world of irrelevant fabrication.
By showing readers that this world of strict classism would have been best left
alone by book’s end, he’s undermining the middle-class, objective, egalitarian
ethos he initially sets up.
Regiment shows us that in no way would the world be better off had
Holmes and Russell not begun investigating the Temple. In this assurance that
disclosure of the truth is the best course of action, and the importance of class
destruction and egalitarianism is also revealed and reinforced. Childe’s
assumption of the role of upper-class woman in her associating with wealthy
benefactors and dressing, eating, and drinking in the highest fashion, presumes
her guilt. This guilt lies not in her crossing of social boundaries because of her
modest upbringing, but in putting on airs as Lady Dedlock, whose “chief quality
is pride,” does (Arms 91). Her immodest wealth detracts from the good work of
her Temple and allows Claude to recognize her as a potential cash cow. The end
of Regiment is a great leveler of classes. As Bleak House retreats into old forms
of social strata, Regiment meets classism head on and shows its horrible
consequences in murder, theft, and corruption of otherwise good charity work.
In charity, Regiment again tears down Victorian presumptions of the benefit
of, or lack of, women’s involvement in the public sphere. Given Mrs. Jellyby’s
“telescopic philanthropy” and Mrs. Pardiggle’s similarly “misdirected
philanthropy” (Bradbury xxi), Bleak Houses's stance on charity couldn’t be
clearer. Women’s work in the public sphere is forcefully denigrated in the novel
and persuasively so using humor to disparage the women who conduct charity
work. Mrs. Jellyby and Pardiggle have miserable families, plagued and
neglected by their respective matriarchs’ pet causes. Mrs. Pardiggle’s boys are
forced to donate their allowance to the cause du jour, and Mrs. Jellyby has a
house in ruin, a daughter she’s turned into a slave to her cause, and a husband
whose only mark is left on the wall by his greasy head.
Alternatively, Ada and Esther are the “good” women who don’t involve
themselves in charity work or the outside world much and end up cleaning up
behind Mrs. Pardiggle and Jellyby. (Of course, Esther later becomes ensconced
in the mystery plot, but only because of her special knowledge and at the behest
of Bucket.) These nonissue characters (Esther and Ada) address the real needs of
those around them, rather than taking up a cause for people in a distant land or
preaching the Bible to a woman who clearly needs provisions for her sick baby.
By casting the charity work of women in a negative light as silly (and potentially
damaging to one