Guppy is also a sensitive lawyer to feel curious about Lady Dedlock’s past and her relationship with Esther Summerson, first when he sees the portrait of the Lady, and later on when he gets to know that Mrs. Chadband “was left in charge of a child named Esther Summerson. (ch.19, p.233). Like Tulkinghorn, he finally work out the mystery with information he gets from Mr. Chadband, and with the help of Mr. Jobling, whom he purposely lodges in Krook’s let room as a spy to find more evidence verifying his suspicion of the possible relationship between Nemo and the Lady. His initial curiosity and the measures he takes to uncover the mystery give clues to his calling as a stipendiary in the law office, but his is more motivated to start and pursue his investigation by the desire to win Summerson’ s hand. Guppy is different from Tulkinghorn in both the motivation to solve the same mystery and his way of treating the subject of his curiosity. Guppy’s consent, at Summerson’s request, to give up the idea of unveiling her birth, and his warning to Lady Dedlock of the danger that her past is discovered and taken advantage of, combine to indicate his humanity in contrast to Tulkinghorn’s coldbloodedness.
Unlike Tulkinghorn and Guppy, who touch on the Lady Dedlock’s mystery all by accident, Inspector Bucket’s involvement with that matter is intentional. He is invited, to set foot there, by Tulkinghorn who sees him as a man “very intelligent in such thing” (ch. 22, p.266). Obviously this steadylooking and sharpeyed detective officer is curious and skillful to square the matter. As the symbol of the newlyemerging police force, his curiosity takes on a form of duty and responsibility, especially when he is immersed in tracking down the murderer of Tulkinghorn and in his later pursuit of Lady Dedlock. Unlike Tulkinghorn, whose curiosity brings in disaster to many people, Bucket’s curiosity helps him to be a successful detective. Unlike Guppy, whose curiosity may be fostered by a selfinterest motivation, Bucket’s detection of the murder and his arrest of Hortense is beneficial both to other people and to himself.
Curiosity out of Nature
Compared with the three characters discussed in the above, Krook, Carstone and Mrs. Snagsby represent another type of curious characters in Bleak House. Their curiosity aims at different things and may be more exactly attributed to their nature .
Krook is a very eccentric person. His eccentricity is embodied in his curiosity about all the rubbish he keeps in his shop, where he is “always rummaging among a litter of paper and grubbing away at himself to read and write” (ch. 20, p. 243) . The fact that he is nicknamed the Lord Chancellor hints at the similarity between him and the head of the Court in that they both, in having “a liking for rust, and must and cobwebs” (ch.5, pp.46-7), represent disorder, corruption and muddleheadedness. Yet Krook is still different from the real Lord Chancellor. If the latter is indifferent to his legal responsibility and makes little effort to bring the Jarndyce to a quick and clear end, the former is, on the contrary, extremely curious to find the truth of the notorious case. The curiosity out of his eccentric nature makes him to teach himself for the purpose of reading the concerning legal papers, gets him interested and excited on seeing anyone who is connected with the suit, and leads to his final ruin in the form of spontaneous combustion, which symbolizes the impossibility of the revelation of the truth under a corrupting legal system as well as its own destructive nature.
Carstone becomes another victim of the irresistible curiosity about the Jarndyce suit. Like Krook, he was plunged into the disastrous matters by his curious desire to find the truth from the massive collections of documents and papers. Yet unlike Krook, who is curious about things which have no bearing upon himself, Carstone tries to find the truth of the case of which he is a part as a possible heir. In addition to his belief that “there is truth and justice somewhere in the case”(ch. 37, p450), he is also curious to know whether he should be made rich by it. With this illusion in his mind, he first shifts from one occupation to another, able to fix on neither of them, then he turns hostile to his kind guardian, who discourages his touch with the case, and finally he broods day and night over papers in his case, exhausting both his physical and mental energies. It is too late for him to realize, at his death, the absurdity and inexpediency of his curiosity about and thus devotion to the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
In addition to Krook and Carstone, Mrs. Snagsby also merits attention and discussion. She is different from Krook and Carstone in that she is more curious about the Lady Declock mystery than about the Chancery matters. She is also different from Tulkinghorn, Puppy and Bucket because her curiosity about this mystery begins from its outcircle instead of the center if we compare the mystery to a cobweb with Lady Dedlock as the core. This inquisitive woman with an active mind nurtures her curiosity with her jealousy. Her suspicion of her husband as Jo’s father and her subsequent efforts to decipher Mr. Snagsby’s secret end up with accidental penetration into the Lady Dedlock mystery. She was among another force to bring to light Lady Dedlock’s past, and plays an important role in making it known to more people.
IV. The Role of Curiosity in Narrative Level
Curious characters with variant curiosity function as the means to achieve coherence in plots on the one hand, and constitute the inner impetus for narrative development on the other. The pervasive curiosity establishes the status of Bleak House as a detective novel, for detective stories are characteristic of suspense while curiosity is none other than effect of suspense.
