Miss Ester Summerson

The heroine of Bleak House. Ester is a very uncomplicated young lady who suddenly finds herself in the middle of an ongoing court case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Of all of Dicken's characters, she is perhaps the most normal. The only unusual thing about her is her family history (which Mr. Guppy is determined to learn about).

Dickens created real, life-like characters based on real people. Dickens’ strong character development is what makes his writing so powerful. Each character has a distinct personality from another. Even the names of the characters reflect part of their individuality. Names like Bumble, Landless, Dedlock, and Datchery reveal something about their character. Dickens uses names like Dodson and Fog—two lawyers from The Pickwick Papers—to make fun of professions and personalities. Even someone who is not familiar with Dickens’ novels would recognize certain names as being Dickensian. Dickens modeled his characters—such as the parochial Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist and the moneywise Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield—after people he knew and saw in his day to day life. His characters are lifelike and real. Dickens made his characters real, not by just describing them, but by letting his characters describe themselves. Each character has a distinct way of speaking and can be identified by the reader without his or her name being mentioned. In some of Dickens’ novels, like Bleak House, there is more than one narrative voice that switches back and forth every two or three chapters. Bleak House is partially written in the first person and narrated by Ester Summerson, the main character. In other chapters, it changes to a third person voice and discusses events that Ester is not able to see. The use of these different techniques not only makes the story interesting, but engaging as well. Dickens’ uses lively characterizations to create a powerful image in the minds of his readers.