You Alright Richard? //Breanna Poole

 So. Richard is dead. 

Honestly, of all the characters I expected to die, it was not Richard. I fully expected one of the major characters to die, but I half expected it to be Esther. I suppose that the fact that the will was in his and Ada's favor is some condolence, but at the same time all the money is gone because of the long-winded legal battle to get them to that point. Richard's death being the ending does seem to finally make good on the promise that the ominous fog set up, as we had to say goodbye to a character we have followed for so many chapters. But I am glad that Esther got a happy ending, after all that happened. Woodcourt seems to genuinely love her, and I'm glad that she didn't marry Jarndyce, who did not love her romantically. 

I wonder if Dickens knew that Richard was going to die from the start, or if he came to the end and didn't know what else to do with Richard. Richard reminds me very much of a character from a novel I've been reading for my American Lit class, Rose Hsu Jordan from The Joy Luck Club. Both seemed incapable of making any kind of lasting decision and simply went with the flow of what was expected of them for a very long time. While Rose eventually seems to get a happy ending by standing up for herself and moving on from a divorce, Richard becomes overrun with a lawsuit and finally fights for something to provide for Ada, which he is unable to do. I'm not sure what to do with that comparison, but it's what reminds me of.

As we come to the end of Bleak House, I am left still struck by the strong imagery that Dickens included in this novel. It certainly is not a boring read, and in many ways the novel seemed to be the opposite of the romantics and instead seems to be focuses on the realities of life in London and England at the time. It was hard, and people got sick, and things happened that didn't always make sense. Ridiculous things happened like the court case that went on for so long, but also tragic things like the deaths of Jo and Richard. 

Does this make sense? I'm not sure this post makes sense. 

Comments

  1. The Mahn-sterNovember 16, 2021 at 12:16 AM

    Yes, this book highlights the pointlessness of Jo and Richard's deaths. Neither of them deserved to die, but death came to them. It accentuates the overall unjustness that is so prevalent in the novel. Numerous others got happy endings, but not everyone made it that far.

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