Bleak House Lesson Plan

Many chapters in this section contain long descriptions of the weather. Discuss these descriptions, and analyze how Dickens uses the weather as a metaphor.

Dickens describes the weather, particularly around the Chancery Court and Chesney Wold, with vivid imagery and diction. Around the Chancery Court, he emphasizes the mud, soot, and fog, immediately establishing an atmosphere of gloom and torpor. These passages are lengthy, and at some points become lyrical and poetic in their cadence: "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green airs and meadows fog down the river where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping...Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on...