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John
Jarndyce, who arranges for Esther to receive a sound education as a future governess. When Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, two wards in Chancery, need a home, John Jarndyce welcomes them to Bleak House, his home near St Albans. Esther joins the establishment as Ada's companion and the family's housekeeper. Over the course of Esther's stay at Bleak House, she learns more about her family, contracts
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Esther is selfless, hard-working and affectionate. She has a tendency to quickly grow fond of the characters she meets; this trait is especially obvious in her first meeting with Ada Clare, whom she refers to as “my love” after only a single conversation. Esther's loving and nurturing personality is
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From her first introduction as narrator, Esther is firmly established to be a shrewd but damaged and self-deprecating character; her first line contains the claim that she has difficulty writing her story because she knows she is not clever, and she repeats this claim to both her childhood doll and
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As a baby, she was brought up by Miss
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also clearly visible in her interactions with Miss
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189:, which results in facial scarring, and learns the identity of her mother, who dies not long after. She becomes engaged to Mr. Jarndyce, her guardian, but ultimately marries a doctor named Allan Woodcourt who had fallen in love with her over the course of the novel.
171:. She also serves as one of the novel's two narrators; half the book is written from her perspective. It is the only example of a double narrative in Dickens and the first person female voice may have been influenced by the example of
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However, Esther is also capable of standing up for herself. When Mr. Guppy proposes to her, for example, she deflects his offer with no small amount of scorn and dislike, going so far as to tell him that his advances are ridiculous.
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her new guardian Mr. Jarndyce. Throughout the novel, Esther continues to profess her shortcomings through both her narration and dialogue, often internally dismissing compliments given to her by other characters.
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of the novel, Esther is portrayed by Berta
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