Bleak House · Chapter
In Fashion explained
The chapter contrasts the world of fashion with the Court of Chancery, both being realms of precedent and usage.
What happens
The chapter contrasts the world of fashion with the Court of Chancery, both being realms of precedent and usage. Lady Dedlock, bored with her dreary Lincolnshire estate, has returned to her townhouse. Sir Leicester Dedlock, a proud baronet, receives Mr. Tulkinghorn, the family solicitor. Tulkinghorn reads legal documents related to the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Lady Dedlock, initially indifferent, becomes agitated upon seeing a handwritten document, asking who copied it, then faints. Tulkinghorn and Sir Leicester are left puzzled by her reaction.
Themes in this chapter
Appearance vs. Reality
Lady Dedlock appears as an inscrutable, fashionable leader, yet those around her know her weaknesses and manipulate her; her faint reveals a hidden vulnerability.
Social Class and Inequality
The Dedlocks represent the landed aristocracy, with Sir Leicester viewing the lower classes with suspicion; the world of fashion is a small, privileged sphere.
Secrets and Identity
Lady Dedlock's reaction to the handwriting hints at a hidden past or secret connection, setting up a mystery that will unfold.
Characters to notice
- Lady Dedlock
Returns to town from Lincolnshire, bored and restless; shows unusual agitation upon seeing a handwritten legal document, then faints.
- Sir Leicester Dedlock
Proud baronet, content with the slow pace of Chancery; alarmed by his wife's fainting spell.
- Mr. Tulkinghorn
The Dedlock family solicitor, discreet and observant; reads the Jarndyce and Jarndyce affidavits and notices Lady Dedlock's strange reaction.
Key passages
“It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same miry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies.”
We only need a brief look at high society on this muddy afternoon, and it's not so different from the Court of Chancery that we can't easily move between them.
The narrator draws a parallel between the fashionable world and the legal world, both governed by tradition and stagnation.
“My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper’s lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper.”
Lady Dedlock, who has no children, becomes annoyed when she sees a warm family scene at the keeper's lodge—a child running to meet a man in the rain.
This moment highlights Lady Dedlock's isolation and perhaps her longing for a different life, contrasting her barren elegance with simple domestic happiness.
“She supposes herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of ordinary mortals—seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks so. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices...”
Lady Dedlock thinks she is mysterious and beyond ordinary understanding, but everyone around her—from her maid to the opera manager—knows her flaws and whims.
The narrator exposes the irony of Lady Dedlock's self-perception versus the reality of her being easily read and manipulated by those who serve her.