The Blurred Slum in Bleak House

Abstract

This research is to analyze the slum, Tom-All-Alone's, in Charles Dickens's Bleak House. The ruinous place, with all the characters' dark connections in it, serves as the area that the characters of upper class must enter and be testified with their desires. In their wondering in the slum, the distinction between the good and bad places in London, just like that between the high and low social ranks, therefore, is blurred with the interactions of the characters. Such blurring contributes to the heterogeneity of Dickens's works, which, in Bakhtin's term, could be understood as ”heterogrossia”, when the characters' performances and speech types are narrated in multiple dialogization. The heterogeneity makes Dickens's London the vivid reflection of his characters' minds.