How Bleak House drew on Jane Eyre
A documented line of influence: Charles Dickens demonstrably engaged Charlotte Brontë’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1847
The Age of the NovelThe influenced
Bleak House
Charles Dickens · 1853
The Age of the NovelRelevance
6/10
On Bleak House’s page
- Esther Summerson's first-person narrative answers Jane Eyre, the recent novel whose success Dickens couldn't ignore
- The shared arc gives it away — orphan, cruel aunt, governess's place, the pull toward marrying the master — Brontë's plot run through Dickens's hands
- Read Jane Eyre first and Esther reads as a deliberate response: the same woman, a colder world
On Jane Eyre’s page
- Jane's first-person voice was a phenomenon — and Dickens answered it with Esther Summerson
- Both heroines run the same track: orphaned, raised by a cruel aunt, sent into governess-and-housekeeper service, then tempted toward marrying the master
- Jane Eyre is the template Dickens reworks, even as he claimed (unconvincingly) never to have read it