Is there a choice?

Charles Dickens used his novels a springboard to draw attention to the unfavorable conditions of the lower class in Victorian society. He used Bleak House as a medium to highlight the corruption of Chancery and the social injustices that were happening in the Victorian Era.  Dickens portrayal of the orphan children as well as the lower class as nothing more than a disease to Victorian society goes a long way in revealing the notion of disconnect in society.  The upper class didn’t bother themselves with the lower class as well as the orphans; they had a mindset of “it is your choice to live that life.” As have discussed in class this is not necessarily the case.  I would make a case that Dickens was trying to bring awareness to the fact that not everything is a choice in life.  

Nevertheless, Dickens creates the notion that the upper class does have choice, for instance, Nemo. I would say that he chose to live the life of a homeless person. He, buy choices that he made caused him to live in the slums of “The Tom-all-alones.”  He was we can safely assume, a man of wealth and importance since he was Lady Dedlock lover.  A safe assumption since by her portrayal we know that she wasn’t a woman who would choose beneath her station.  Nemo is a character that signifies the idea the rich are born with choices, and what Dickens is saying in his representation of his poor characters is that people don’t always have a choice.  If we take a look at Jo we see a child that has been thrown into a world of not his own making.  He is orphaned and is forced to learn to survive in the best way that he knows how.  He because of a choice he was not allowed to make is not educated.  He walks the streets of London not know what anything says or means. Given the choice we as readers and human beings would know that he most certainly would choose to live a life of wealth.  Jo is seen by the upper class a symbol of a flawed society. One that cannot remedy the social disconnects that money and status has created. 

Naturally, Victorian society associates the idea of disease with the poor of London since it is something that they can’t seem to get away from.  It is the lower class as well as the orphans, which represent a failure to purge a “cancer”, so to speak from the what the upper class like to think of a perfect way of life.  The lower class highlights the dark and unstable aspect of what the Victorians associate it as a person with a terminal illness. It is something to ignore and don’t want to face.  It is frightening to them the idea of not having a healthy happy society.  The poor I would argue are a blemish to the Utopian ideal the Victorians have on their way of life.