Authors sometimes present their life’s predicaments and challenges in the form of fictional tales that criticize society and those in power. Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House with the same purpose, to take off his chest a certain legal misfortune that had befallen upon him. In Bleak House, he writes about a fictional court case running at the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has affected almost all major characters of the novel. Bleak House was first published 166 years ago. It does not have the kind of expression and style novels of the modern era have. The readers in 2019 will consider Dickens’ writing style unorthodox, to say the least, because during his time this was how English was written. During the 1800s, people read novels the way they should be – they long pieces of prose explaining the message, the action of the characters and building the story up until it hit the climax. Novels of yesteryear were long, had a plethora of characters while the novel itself had a plot with multiple sub-plots. Bleak House follows a similar structure, which does satisfy the need for an avid reader to keep reading. In the modern era, however, George R. R. Martin (Dying of the Light, Windhaven, The Game of Thrones) is perhaps the one who uses multiple characters and multiple subplots to perfection in his novels. Dickens when writing Bleak House has used the sensitivities and the intricacies involved in using a rich vocabulary. You would realize that the sentences in Bleak House are long, as compared to the short and crisp sentences modern authors write. Furthermore, the language used by the characters in Bleak House is rather elaborative – it is rich with words and is quite extravagant. It reflects the conversational style of the people living in that time. Victorian England is evident in Dickens’ depiction of the geographical place where the story is set along with the attire worn by the characters and by the culture they follows. Charles Dickens has poured his heart out against the corrupt system that was affecting people’s life during the era when he wrote this novel. The first chapter has a number of metaphors related to fog. Dickens used this metaphor to descript corruption that it prevented people and especially those in authority to see what was ahead of them and were unable to see the truth. He writes, “Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships.” Dickens when writing Bleak House has used the sensitivities and the intricacies involved in using a rich vocabulary. You would realise that the sentences in Bleak House are long, as compared to the short and crisp sentences modern authors write. Furthermore, the language used by the characters in Bleak House is rather elaborative — it is rich with words and is quite extravagant Charles Dickens either experimented or was it his intention, we may never know, to write the novel having a couple of eccentricities as far as the writing technique was concerned. First, there are several point-of-views throughout the novel. This seems quite interesting as you get to see a different perspective of the story. However, the second peculiarity is to go back and forth from using the past tense and the present tense, which at times can become too odd to read. The present tense does not reveal what to expect in the next scene, which makes it a bit of a challenge. Interestingly, there is a third-person omniscient narrator explaining bits and parts of the story. However, Esther Summerson, the protagonist, narrates most of the novel in the first-person. She is an orphan who has been raised by her aunt, Miss Barbary. There is parallel construction in many parts of the novel, which does make the narrative interesting despite the repetition of a thought, along with Dickens’ use of colloquialisms and figure of speeches. Regardless of the novel’s serious theme, Dickens keeps the reader consciously aware of what is transpiring in the story. The story begins and revolves around the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce that has been going on at the High Court of Chancery for so long people do not know its historical perspective. The case relates to the settlement of a large sum of inheritance. Charles Dickens uses this fictional case to describe the Chancery Court System to be useless for not providing justice, as people would have expected. Dickens – openly and blatantly – through his fictional characters represents the miserable justice system of his era with the underlining theme of suffering created by the High Court of Chancery and its self-serving lawyers. The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist. He can be reached at omariftikhar@hotmail.com