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The Idea of Revolution presented in Bleak House and Pere Goriot Balzac created a literary masterpiece called Pere Goriot in which he presented the idea of how society was established in post revolutionary period in France. This is a story of the struggling student Rastignac in Paris, embroiled in the life of the saintly Goriot and the Villainous Vautrin. Physical spaces and social groups can have intertwined and sometimes meaningful histories. ne thinks, fr instance, f the relationship f Stonehenge and the Druids r the Mur des Federees and the Cmmunards f 1871. Though less well known, a similar relationship existed between the Place de Greve, the pen square funding Paris Htel de Ville (city hall), and the migrant stonemasons frm central France wh used the setting as a hiring fair. The Place de Greve is especially noteworthy fr its history f contentiousness in the nineteenth century, fr it was here that cards tended t gather, rules f insurrection circulated and rebellin's reached their climax; where the heightened social tennis that marked Paris frm the Revlutin f 1789 though the Commune f 1871 could be seen t take shape and play ut.
Less well known is the Places connection t the stonemasons. Yet this combination f physical space and social grup contributed t a contentious repertoire that would help t make Paris the nineteenth century's capital f revlutin. At the new case, Grit dies in party, and the yung Rastignac stands n the hill f a cemetery. Line ut ver Paris he screams ut an ath, a battle cry, a declaration in which he discharges the we system that appeared t lead Grit t such a tragic end. Thus left and, Rastignac walked a few steps t the highest part f the cemetery, and saw Paris spread ut be n bth banks f the winding Seine. Lights were beginning t twinkle here and there.
His gaze fixed also avidly upn the space that lay between the column f the Place Vendor and the dme f the Invalids; there lay the splendid world that he had wished t gain. He eyed that humming hive with a lk that field its desolation, as if he already full n his lips the sweetness f its he, and said with superb defiance, Its war between us nw! And by way f thing do the gauntlet t Society, Rastignac went t dine with Madame de Nucingen. Nw let us try t find ut what is the war Rastignac has in mind? The by makes a ridiculously idealistic speech, and then forget abut it immediately. Anther though, is that in the modern Paris f Balzac's time, yu might indeed conduct a war n society by attending society dinners.
Still a third: t ur ears we expect this war t be sme srt f socialist revlutin, but maybe Balzac has something else in mind? Rastignac may simply be declaring that he will never die a pauper like Grit. There is n full-n volume f Rastignac's struggles, we nly see him again after hes become financially successful. At that pint, theres n fire left in him.
Hes brought abut n social change, and des nt seem t be trying t, he just seems like anther ne f the aristocracy f wealth. The imagery associated with the Place de Greve that rendered it nitrous was related t the leaves turbulent political history, which dated frm the Revlutin f 1789. After the Revlutin and through at least mid-nineteenth century, price and municipal facials- whse primary concern naturally removed and preserving the regime- were exceedingly concerned abut the Revlutin's impact upn the citys working class. It was especially the legacy f political unrest and rebellion dating frm the Revolutionary era, and its potential impact upn the daily cd f building workers gathering at the Places hiring fair, that preoccupied authorities. The dread f unrest that characterized French government fr much f the nineteenth century was partly a product f the price f political equality and the insurrectionary legacy bequeathed by the Revlutin f 1789. The political price, agreed in 1793 and largely demand under Naples, was resurrected in the 1820 s and thereafter repeatedly played a rle in mobilizing workers and ther's frm 1830 through 1871.
A message f the Revlutin's political legacy that price feared would find its way int the conversation and thoughts f building workers gathered at the Place de Greve was that their (workers) rights could be gained through rebellion. Indeed, the insurrectionary legacy f 1789 - 1794 was given new life in the first half f the nineteenth century through the writing f the Revlutin's history and in the programs and rhetoric f grup's such as the Society fr the Rights f Man and individual leaders like Luis-Auguste Blanqui. T judge by price reports and the ccasinal workers member, this message did have resonance in the cards at the Place. Thus, Nadaud was drawn t republicanism following the Revlutin f 1830, became acquainted with the socialist and associative dc trines f the day, kept up with politics and even tk t wearing an ld-fashioned Phrygian cap as a sign f fidelity t the revolutionary cause. Viewing the Place de Greve as a barometer fr rebellion, the price were naturally concerned abut a revival f the spirit f 93 and the effect upn the stonemasons f political ideas r the persuasion f dedicated purschists. Sme news, like sme alcoholic drinks, improve with age.
A century r s after they first appear, they may seem mre urgently contemporary than they were n the day f their publication. Samuel Richard sns Clarissa, published in the mid- 18 th century, has a claim t being the greatest f English news - nt least if yu think size matters, as it is certainly the latest. But the Victrian's fund it prudish and preachy, and nly with the advent f modern feminism did this astonishing portrait f a cruelly expected was cme triumphantly int its wn. The paranoid fictin's f Franz Kafka nly really came alive nce we had witnessed the rise f totalitarian states. Joseph Cards The Secret Agent includes the first suicide buyer in English literature, which makes it mre relevant nw than it was when it first appeared in 1907. The same might be said f ne f the mst magnificent f all English news, Charles Dickens Bleak Huse.
At first glance, this claim might be doubted. The bk pens with ne f the great Victrian literary set pieces, a visit f Lndn shrouded frm end t end in fg; and pea-supers, and with Peelers, are features f 19 th-century Lndn which have passed away. This fg, however, is mre symbolic than real. It is dank, clammy, putrid, fetid ze that seeps int every crevice f Victrian society; frm the East End slums t the Lrd Chancellors chambers.
Later in the bk, it will merge int the ful infection, which creeps frm the human cesspit f Tm-all-Alone t contaminated the fashionable suburbs. What als spontaneously combusts in the bk is its central plt: the Kafkaesque legal case f Jarndyce vjarndyce, which has dragged n fr s lng that there is nude still and wh understands what it is abut. The lawsuit finally eats up its wn expenses and classes. It is ne f Dickens many images f a social re, which is ut f cntrl - ne that wrk's by its wn impenetrable login, callously indifferent t the human lives it is supposed t serve.
This is a clairvyantly ecological visit. Dickens sees his society as rating, unraveling, s freighted with meaningless matter that it is sinking back gradually int sme primeval slime. In ur Mutual Friend, Lndn is ne huge dust heap, and dust is a Dickensian euphemism. The we place is awash with garbage, and human beings are being hard t distinguish frm bits f rag and bne.
The sinister Krk f Bleak Huse dies by spontaneously cm busting, reduced t a few spt's f grease, as though this we tp-heavy system is in danger f implying. The fg is symbolic f this social paleness. Men and when in this world are caught up together in the same store narrative, their lives subtly interested. In Bleak Huse, J the illiterate crossing-sweeper, the decaying aristocracy f Lrd and Lady Deck, and the saintly middle-class narrator Esther Summers n are all secretly interconnected with being aware f it. But this is a plt that n ne f them is able t father. The unlettered J and Krk quite literally can read the world and them.
nly the novelist himself can bring these hidden relations t light, laying bare the login f a world that n ne any longer can decipher as a we. This, t, has a prophetic feel t it. It is, s t speak, Dickens version f globalization. The mre unified the world is, the mre fragmented it feels.
In Bleak Huse, as in the global banking system, everything connect with everything else; but like the fg, the contagious fever and the lawsuit, these are negative images f human solidarity. It is as though any mre positive version f human relations is nw impossible t represent. Characters in Bleak Huse live in their wn secluded, sealed-ff wrld's: the crazed Miss Flite, the washed-up Dedlcks, the destitute J, the paranoiacally-suspicious Krk, the scatological named Mr Turveydrp. The system that brings them together als free them apart. Fr these figures, there is n such thing as society - and this, ironically, at exactly the pint when society feels mre that than ever before. Social life, as usual with Dickens, is just a bewildering apartment f eccentrics, grotesque, amiable its and may monstrosities.
They have n language in can, as each sports his r her unique mde f speech like an eye-catching disability. The nly thing they share, ironically, is solitude. J is an roman, like s many Dickensian children; but being rehanged is nw a collective condition, as society discs responsibility fr its citizens. What governs this world, as in Little Drrit r Great Expectations, is my. But my is n longer just in the miserliness f a Fagin: it is nw a system that imprint and denatures even the supposed t be in command f it.
The staggeringly rich financier in Little Drrit, Middle (anther suggestively excremental name), is a muse f a man terrified f his wn butler and driven finally t suicide. The government facials wh supposedly run the state bureaucracy advise yu confidentially t steer well clear f it. Crime, party and deepening inequality are nw apparently Nbdy's Fault - ne f Dickens regional titles fr Bleak Huse. Dickens n longer trusts that all this could be set t rights, as it might have been in his earlier fiction, by sme bumbling paternalist with a twinkle in his eye and a purse in his fist. Nr can he turn t the family as a refuge frm a heartless society.
The families f Bleak Huse are mre a microcosm f society than an alternative t it. They tend t be twisted patriarchal set-ups, domestic versin's f the ppr essive state. Dickens fiction is full f failed fathers and false paternalists, prematurely aged children and waifs f indeterminate age. The we sci-sexual network is somehow diseased. In Great Expectations, the her's mother is actually his sister, while his better-in-law plays the rle f his father. Hard Simple, the bohemian artist f Bleak Huse, has homes f children and little t feed them n; but whereas the yung Dickens would have sneakingly admired this extravagant irresponsibility, skimp le is unmasked as a squalid exist.
Are there n pints f light in this darkening visit? There are a few, but they are hardly adequate. Dickens was case t sme f the utilitarian reformist, sharing something f their Blairite, briskly modernizing spirit. The positive characters in Bleak Huse are men with practical skills wh get something dne, characters such as Wdcurt (a physician), Bucket (a detective) and Runcewell (an inventor).
They are the hardheaded types wh will dispel the fg, under concealed connections and patch up a social re bund together by little mre than the rating parchment f its bureaucracy. Yet if Bleak Huse urges this solution, it als press against it. Its imaginative insight is at dds with its politics. It would take a gd deal mre than improved medical care and sanitation t repair the false, dehumanized society it portrays. Bleak Huse, like quite a lt f news, is a gd deal mre radical than its author. Its creative power is s deep that it puts int question its wn reformist solutions.
Nude ever accused ur wn Blairites f ding that. Bibliography: Charles Dickens, Bleak House, New York: Viking Press, 2 nd Edition, 1997 Eleanor de Balzac, Pere Goriot, Penguin Books, 1983 Will Find, French Revolution Issues, from National Geographic, issue April 2001 Joe Stephenson, Industrial Revolution Trends in Great Britain, from Ontario Statesman, issue May 1998
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Research essay sample on Nineteenth Century Charles Dickens
