Bleak House

Bleak House

by

Charles Dickens

Richard Carstone Character Analysis

Richard is a ward of the court in the lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, as well as the cousin and eventual husband of Ada Clare. He is taken under the guardianship of Mr. Jarndyce, who takes Richard into his home and tries to get him set up in a profession. Richard also becomes close friends with Ada’s companion and Mr. Jarndyce’s housekeeper, Esther Summerson. Richard is an orphan and a relative of Tom Jarndyce, a plaintiff in Jarndyce and Jarndyce who shot himself after the long, drawn out trial drove him mad. Throughout the course of the novel, Richard, too, is driven mad by his role in the Chancery suit. Richard is a friendly, lively, and passionate young man who genuinely wants to please his friends and relatives. However, he is not particularly ambitious and has not developed any strong interests when it comes to his profession. He is easily swayed and goes along with whichever options Mr. Jarndyce suggests for him, and although he is well liked by his employers, they all remark that he lacks discipline. This trait, coupled with his carelessness with money, leads Richard to give up all three professions he takes on, and eventually drives him towards Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Richard is naïve and idealistic and believes that the case will make his fortune once it is solved. As Richard degenerates into madness, stubbornly ignoring the warnings and advice of other characters, his hopes turn into bitter delusions. He begins to believe that Mr. Jarndyce is his enemy and works against him in the lawsuit. Richard falls victim to a predatory lawyer named Mr. Vholes, who continually encourages Richard’s false hopes that the lawsuit will one day make him rich. Richard is associated with Miss Flite, an old woman who has been driven mad by a Chancery suit and who names one of her caged birds after him.

Richard Carstone Quotes in Bleak House

The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Richard Carstone or refer to Richard Carstone. 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:
Social Mobility, Class, and Lineage Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse, and its dead in every churchyard; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance; […] there is not an honorable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, ‘Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!’

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Miss Flite
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman, of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if—I am quoting Richard again—they could see nothing nearer than Africa!

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Mr. Jarndyce, Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mrs. Jellyby
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

‘We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to our place of meeting yesterday, and—by the Great Seal, here’s the old lady again!’

Related Characters: Richard Carstone (speaker), Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, Miss Flite, Caddy Jellyby
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

A little way within the shop-door, lay heaps of old crackled parchment scrolls, and discolored and dog’s-eared law- papers […] One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Krook, Miss Flite, Caddy Jellyby
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

She partly drew aside the curtain of the long low garret-window, and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there: some containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and goldfinches—I should think at least twenty. ‘I began to keep the little creatures,’ she said, ‘with an object that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings, that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again.’

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Miss Flite (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Caddy Jellyby
Related Symbols: Miss Flite’s Birds
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation; and that it invariably interrupted Mr. Jarndyce, and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Mr. Jarndyce, Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mrs. Pardiggle
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

‘How much of this indecision of character,’ Mr Jarndyce said to me, ‘is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don’t pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off—and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance—and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused.’

Related Characters: Mr. Jarndyce (speaker), Esther Summerson, Richard Carstone
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Mr Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy’s office, of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, when there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary.

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Mr. Guppy
Page Number: 235-236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern’s light; Richard, all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his hand; Mr. Vholes, quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mr. Vholes, Mr. Skimpole
Page Number: 457
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him. Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is.

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Mr. Vholes
Page Number: 471
Explanation and Analysis:
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Richard Carstone Quotes in Bleak House

The Bleak House quotes below are all either spoken by Richard Carstone or refer to Richard Carstone. 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:
Social Mobility, Class, and Lineage Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse, and its dead in every churchyard; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance; […] there is not an honorable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, ‘Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!’

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Miss Flite
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman, of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if—I am quoting Richard again—they could see nothing nearer than Africa!

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Mr. Jarndyce, Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mrs. Jellyby
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

‘We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to our place of meeting yesterday, and—by the Great Seal, here’s the old lady again!’

Related Characters: Richard Carstone (speaker), Esther Summerson, Ada Clare, Miss Flite, Caddy Jellyby
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

A little way within the shop-door, lay heaps of old crackled parchment scrolls, and discolored and dog’s-eared law- papers […] One had only to fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Krook, Miss Flite, Caddy Jellyby
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

She partly drew aside the curtain of the long low garret-window, and called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there: some containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and goldfinches—I should think at least twenty. ‘I began to keep the little creatures,’ she said, ‘with an object that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings, that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again.’

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Miss Flite (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Caddy Jellyby
Related Symbols: Miss Flite’s Birds
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation; and that it invariably interrupted Mr. Jarndyce, and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Mr. Jarndyce, Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mrs. Pardiggle
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

‘How much of this indecision of character,’ Mr Jarndyce said to me, ‘is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don’t pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off—and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance—and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused.’

Related Characters: Mr. Jarndyce (speaker), Esther Summerson, Richard Carstone
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Mr Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy’s office, of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, when there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary.

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Mr. Guppy
Page Number: 235-236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern’s light; Richard, all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his hand; Mr. Vholes, quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

Related Characters: Esther Summerson (speaker), Ada Clare, Richard Carstone, Mr. Vholes, Mr. Skimpole
Page Number: 457
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him. Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is.

Related Characters: Richard Carstone, Mr. Vholes
Page Number: 471
Explanation and Analysis: