Previous
Phil
Jo is a poor, homeless boy who sweeps the streets around the Chancery court and receives a few coins from passersby for this work. Jo is an orphan and knows nothing about his parents. He has had no education and has survived on the streets for as long as he can remember. Jo becomes involved in the Dedlock mystery when Lady Dedlock visits Jo and pays him to show her Captain Hawdon’s grave. Lady Dedlock knows that Jo knew Captain Hawdon because he is asked to give evidence at the inquest into the Captain’s death; however, Jo knows nothing about his death and only knows that Captain Hawdon, otherwise known as Nemo, gave him coins sometimes. Jo relies entirely on meager acts of charity to live. He is a good-natured boy and helps a poor woman, Liz, get medicine when she is ill. Although he is kind, however, Jo is considered repugnant by many of the characters because he is so poor, has no way to wash or take care of himself, and is riddled with disease because of the unsanitary conditions he lives in. Jo eventually dies of smallpox when George takes him in. The law stationer Mr. Snagsby who feels sorry for Jo and often gives him money. Mrs. Snagsby, who witnesses this, becomes convinced that Jo is Mr. Snagsby’s illegitimate child, but this is not the case. Dickens uses Jo’s poverty and the manner of his death to reflect the real-life squalor and poverty that was rife in city slums during the Victorian period.
Jo Quotes in Bleak House
The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Jo or refer to Jo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 16
Quotes
What connection can there be, between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabouts of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard step? What connection can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. He sums up his mental condition, when asked a question, by replying that he ‘don’t know nothink.’
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As, on the ruined human wretch, vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever, and sowing more evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years—though born expressly to do it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35
Quotes
What should I have suffered, if I had had to write to him, and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me, and that I freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen!
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Bleak House LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jo Quotes in Bleak House
The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Jo or refer to Jo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 16
Quotes
What connection can there be, between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabouts of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard step? What connection can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. He sums up his mental condition, when asked a question, by replying that he ‘don’t know nothink.’
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As, on the ruined human wretch, vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever, and sowing more evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years—though born expressly to do it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35
Quotes
What should I have suffered, if I had had to write to him, and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me, and that I freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen!
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
