We reach the end of our little journey through Bleak House!
I must thank you for your attention as we have gone on this little journey together through some of the aspects of Bleak House! As you know, I am a sometimes reluctant instructress; however, I hope that I have given you some ideas about how to work through this novel. I also hope that I have given you some ideas about how to work through other pieces of fiction. Using what might seem somewhat schematic categories–locations, characters, themes, and adaptations–can help us create a framework within which to put things. The many ideas of Mr Dickens’s great novels evade and blur categories–after all, he writes Life!, and Life is somewhat complicated.
To return to that image of the fog, which pervades London at the opening of the novel. If fog can be a metaphor for misunderstanding, confusion, and also perhaps for the challenges of responding to and thinking about too much information, then I hope that I have assisted you in clearing away that fog, so that the novel shines forth with some clarity!