“Bleak House” is a novel written by Charles Dickens. It presents a long lawsuit called “Jarndyce against Jarndyce”, that for many years had no results.

Just reading the title, the intelligent reader understands that the centre of the novel is a house. It is defined as “bleak” and so the reader may speculate that it was abandoned and left to decay, but now it is placed at the centre of a debate.

Analisyng the structure, the reader notes that the text is mainly composed by narration. So he suggests first chapter may be dedicated to describe the situation and the context where actions take place.

After a careful reading, the reader understands chapter 1 starts situa the description of an autumn London, that is wet, cold and wrapped in fog. After that, the point of view moves to the Court of Chancery, a specific legal department, that is in session and where “Jarndyce and Jarndyce”, a famous lawsuit which has dragged on for several generations, is brought before the Lord Chancellor. The atmosphere is dreary, the lawyers doze, and the court is almost empty except for a “mad old woman,” who visits the court daily, and a poor man from Shropshire who is determined to attract the Chancellor’s attention but who, every day, is ignored.

The novelist provides a great characterisation of London. Its description puts in evidence the presence of a costant and darkening fog, that wraps everything and everyone. Indeed, fog and smog were common in London in the 19th century because of pollution and industrial use of coal.
The element of the fog has also an other meaning: it is referred to the court. Indeed, it produces a fog that obscures and creates confusion and depression in which people are lost. A clear example of that is provided by two characters described in the first chapter: the"little mad old woman" and the Shropshire man. Dickens, with them, wants to highlight the central theme of the novel: the High Court of Chancery is an institutionalized abuse of the law.

Focusing the attention on narrative techniques, the reader notes that in chapter 1, the novelist uses a style of narration that puts in evidence the inaction of Chancery and the stagnation of the lives that wait for its decisions. As a result, Dickens describes facts with static verbs, that eliminate any kind of movement. He also provides long descriptions about places and characters in order ti slow down the time and so ti stand out the main theme of the novel.

Considering the overall effect, the first chapter makes Dickens' social criticism explicit and introduces one of the novel main themes: the ruin of the Chancery Court of many people's lives, what it has done and what it continue to do. Indeed, the cost of the Court and lawyers' fees have already exhausted all the inheritance money in Jarndyce. The case has gone on for so many years and has "become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means.