A Study of Institutions in Dickens’s Bleak House as a Representation of Foucault’s Disciplinary Society

This study reveals Foucault's views on the strategies of power to analyze that the institutional world of Bleak House makes a disciplinary structure. The intrusion of these institutions in all strata of society in the novel, from the aristocratic Dedlocks to the poor area of Tom-AllAlone shapes a panoptic structure in which everyone is visible through a permanent and omniscient gaze. Under the matrix of various institutions almost all the characters in the novel, directly or indirectly, are trapped and engaged. This study shows the modernity of Dickens views on power relations in society and gives readers new maps to read Bleak House and new perspectives from which to view it.

Police enforce an all-inclusive power by observing, arresting and enforcing. Foucault addresses himself to other agents of power in both public and private structures and institutions as well (e.g. the army, courts, philanthropic organizations, the medical institutions, etc.). With the diffusion of these multitude institutions, power is spread throughout the social body.
Along with the institutional aspect of power, it is described by Foucault as a system of relations. This system dismantles the conventional hierarchical notion of power. According to Jenny Sharpe's arguement, the notion of "an omnifunctional, free-floating power breaks down any distinction between relations of domination and subordination." [qtd. in M. E. Goodla, 543.] Power is circulated in all directions through the social body. It is a strategy, not a property. Foucault (1980) claims: "Power must be analyzed as something which circulates, or something which only functions in the form of a chain." [98] Everywhere, power is exercised in a netlike fashion, and everyone is involved in this interplay of power which penetrates every space. Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977) says that even the state itself depends on external relations of power. The state for Foucault refers to public apparatuses of the army, the police, prisons, courts. This new type of power has been described as a "fundamental instrument in the constitution of industrial capitalism and of the type of society that is its accompaniment." [Foucault, 1977: 105] Disciplinary Society and Panopticon. Discipline is a process by which power operates in the society and regulates the individual's behavior. It applies "surveillance" which is a complex system of observation and "gaze". Therefore, in disciplinary power visibility is the essential medium of power.
As discipline is a mode of power, Panopticon is a model of society as a whole. Foucault borrowed the term 'panopticon' from the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The term refers to an architectural structure for a prison in which cells are under the gaze of a central tower. The prisoners are subject to a ceaseless visibility from the tower. They, therefore, police themselves.
In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault uses "Panopticon" as a representative of how power and surveillance function in different institutions of the society. He contends that Panopticon offers a suitable model that describes modern formation of power in which everybody is involved. There is not a single significant person in tower. According to  "anyone may come and exercise in the central tower the function of surveillance." [207] Even "[t]hose who occupy the central position in panopticon" [Rabinow,19] feel themselves under the gaze of power. This visibility and constant surveillance makes individuals "thoroughly enmeshed in localization and ordering of their own behavior." [ibid.] Consequently, this visibility is not restricted to a limited class, and no one can escape its omniscience.
The Panopticon was to function as an apparatus of power by virtue of the field of visibility in which individuals were to be located, each in their respective places (e.g. cells, positions, rooms, beds, etc.), for a centralized and unseen observer. In this schema subjects were to be individualized in their own spaces, to be visible, and to be conscious of their potentially constant and continuous visibility. [Smart,83] Foucault (1977) acknowledges that the Panopticon is a "transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole." [207] The individual must never know whether he is being looked at, but "must be sure that he may always be so." [M. E. Goodla, 542] Thus, this disciplinary power results in self-discipline and self-surveillance.
Concordantly, such an institutional setting as Panopticon will employ "a set of checks and coercions through gaze and surveillance designed to produce compliant, productive citizens." [Ransom,45] According to Foucault, disciplinary power leads to an "integrated system" and "a network of relations;" a "carceral net" manipulated by its institutions and disciplinary mechanism.
"Discipline makes possible the operation of a relational power that sustains itself by its own mechanism." [Foucault, 1977: 176-77] It also makes possible "a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men ... which can be implemented in hospitals, workshops, schools, prisons." [ibid., 205]

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Dickens prefigures Foucault's emphasis on power relations in modern society. Dona Rae Foran (1994) explains that "It is exactly that power which preoccupies him with examinations of prisons, of criminals, of lawyers, of judges." [190] Bleak House is one of his novels in which every element such as plot, characters and theme enforce and embody multiple connections between individuals and institutions. "Things hang together in Dickens's world, stories converge, unlikely connections are made, entanglements and dependencies are inevitable." [Levine,131] Schools, prisons, families, etc. reflect the labyrinth structure of the society in his novels. This structural arrangement allows Dickens's view of the nineteenth-century society as a representative of panopticism. This study applies Foucault's concept of power to delineate the institutional world of Bleak House as a disciplinary society.

Discussion
Bleak House is the story of a central inheritance case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which is going on in the court of Chancery, resulting in the connection of almost all the characters.
In the meantime, another strand in plot falls into place which is the uncovering of Lady Dedlock's secret. Revealing her relationship with Esther involves the institution of police. The inspections of Bucket involves and relates all the characters gradually; all the characters from different classes, from aristocratic Chesney Wold, through Bleak House, to the poor area of Tom-all Alone's. George Gissing (1926) describes its plot as "a puzzle, yet ingeniously simple; the parts fitting together very neatly indeed. So neatly, that poor untidy Life disclaims all connection with these doings." [50] Along with the two main strands in the plot, there are other subplots which eventually converge. The intricate novel's subplots involve multiple minor characters who are gradually connected to the main plot. To borrow Chesterton's (1970) description of the plot of Bleak House, "The thing is no longer a string of incidents; it is a cycle of incidents." [150] Dickens characters are brought together by machinery of the institutions. [Childers,199] This system entraps them in a network of widespread surveillance. In Dickens's Bleak House (1853) men-to-men interactions are crucial to the making of this network. While reading the novel, we frequently encounter this statement "what is that to me?" or "what connexion can there be?" [197] These statements, echoed implicitly or explicitly through all of Bleak House, are the base of the novel which is a hidden bond between characters. Dickens, the novelist, builds a novel like an architect in which every character is imprisoned in the network of gazes.
Foucault holds that institutions create rules which are called law. He says "Think of "government" as that set of institutions formally established through the consent of the governed to create formal rules (laws) for the interaction of citizens." [Ransom,187] So these institutions in the novel could be subsumed under a larger category like the "law." Dickens uses the law as "an organizational principle in his narrative fiction." [ Schramm,290] Different institutions in the novel involve court of Chancery-as-law, police as a representative of law, parliament as law making and other organizations such as charity, medicine, religion, army.
In Bleak House the presence of law is immediately felt by the institution "Chancery." Chancery serves as an analogy of Foucault's "laboratory of power" or Panopticon. [Foucault, 1977: 204] The panoptic world of Chancery is the world of surveillance, control and punishment through the instrument of gaze, like "an official cat patiently watching a mouse's hole." [Dickens,551] This gaze takes different forms and shapes in a circulation, which Richard calls "labyrinth", and is exerted upon characters by different major as well as minor characters. Some people, those who have its knowledge, are "in it". The omnipresence and consistency of court's gaze is represented by symbols of fog, smoke and dirt. There's "fog everywhere" and "mud in streets".
…with pedestrians hardly able to progress in the muddy streets, hardly able to see their way forward with the all-pervading fog. Their inability to go forward and their confusion prepare us for the delays and obscurities of the Court of Chancery [Tracy,382].

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The suit of Jarandyce and Jarandyce always comes on "for further directions", being absorbed in costs. Richard, Gridley and Miss Flite are all involved in the suit of Jarandyce and Jarandyce. Richard is under Vholes's gaze. "He fixes his charmed gaze on his young client." [Dickens,551] In fact, these lawyers transfer surveillance from the court to the families. Richard buys a house near Vholes, to watch the suit working, but in fact this is Mr. Vholes who takes Richards' life under his gaze; "always here sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." [idid., 554] When Richard is described "unfortunate," that means in relation to Mr. Vholes. " An ugly report of our most unfortunate Rick. Laying a marked emphasis on most unfortunate, as if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr. Vholes." [ibid., 615] Tulkinghorn, Vholes, Kenge and Guppy and so many other lawyers are instruments for the court to continue. They squeeze money out of clients and reproduce power. "The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings." "The question is never one of a change from Wrong to Right (which is an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or advantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes." [ibid., 549] Vholes always looks at his client, Richard, "as if he were making a lingering meal of him, with his eyes as well as with his professional appetite." [ibid., 550] By "putting his shoulder to the wheel" he "pull(s) him (Richard) through" [ibid., 554] the court and makes the Chancery's wheel "going round" [ibid., 550] In an interesting transition from his descriptions of Chancery to his next chapter dealing with the Dedlocks, Dickens comments "Both the world of fashion and the court of Chancery are things of precedent and usage." [ibid., 8] Both worlds of the Chancery and the aristocracy are connected to each other through plot and characters which display the usage of gaze in power relations. Lady Dedlock is a party to the most vital Chancery suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Sir Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, Tulkinghorn, takes shelter in Dedlock's family pretty often, "there being estate business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on." [ibid., 402] Mr. Tulkinghorn "walks into Chesney Wold as if it were next door to his chambers, and returns to his chambers as if he had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields." [ibid., 514] Lady Deddlock is also under a member of Chancery's gaze; Tulkinghorn. "My Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer." [ibid., 402] To Lady Dedlock he seems to be omnipresent; "Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him for a moment." [ibid., 575] He interferes in family matters with his watchful eyes. Tulkinghorn after discovering Lady Dedlock's secret tells her: The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady Dedlock; but, as they are not of my making, I will not apologise for them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well known to you, that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery. [ibid., 578] Tulkinghorn's inspection is called "natural." As if he is "part and parcel of the place." [ibid., 86] "He is in the confidence of the very bricks and mortars (of lofty houses). The high chimney-stacks telegraph family secrets to him." [ibid., 662] In this part, Lady Dedlock is particularly illustrative of an object of "omniscient inspection." She has resigned herself to permanent observation by Tulkinghorn and the law because of her secret. Social standing forces Lady Dedlock to keep her past secret, but Tulkinghorn is a powerful figure because he has access to her secret. Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here, holding this conversation. [ibid., 659]

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These are only a few examples of Chancery court, as an institution, making different circulations for controlling characters through gaze. Other minor characters such as Miss Flite and Gridely are also under Chancery's power. The workings of Chancery imprison in a silent code of law. Consequently, those who conform to the normative are rewarded, and any sense of ending imposed on it is answered severely by exclusion or punishment. [Smart,81]As we read in the novel Richard is punished because he tries for finality of chancery and Miss Flite who waits for the Judgment day is excluded as a madwoman. Miss Flite is excluded as a madwoman by the system because she has the hollow hope of ending for the suit. As we get familiar to her, we find out that she is not mad but she is "as sanity itself can be," [Dickens,637] having "a fund of knowledge and good sense." [ibid., 637] But it is just that the system does not credit her.
You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day! I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the Mace and Seal, in these many years. As my father's came here. As She is just in a "smiling state" [ibid., 214] of "the work of chancery" and she calls it "the Monster." Or Gridely is another character whom the system ruined because he got in Chancery's ways and "narrow turnings." Gridely himself mentions the reason for his destruction; "I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my single hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me." [ibid., 351] The institution of Chancery as law has never been eliminated from Bleak House even though the institution of detective police comes into the scene.
The institution of police is another public apparatus which traverses the entire social body and macro-level. The major focus of novel, after Chancery-as-law, is on Bucket as representative of law. After Tulkinghorn's death we continue the novel with Bucket's detections. His story starts with the arrest of Jo. As Dickens brings Jo's story to closure, he initiates Lady Dedlock's flight; again a string of detections follow. It is another more powerful institution which permeates every character's life. He enforces an all-inclusive field of power in public structure through his abilities to observe and arrest.
Bucket performs the disciplinary function of unceasing surveillance, the observation and report of the behavior of individuals throughout the entire social body. Snagsby describes Bucket as having "an unlimited number of eyes." No one seems to escape Bucket's gaze. He "mounts a high tower in his mind, and looks out far and wide." Bucket's watchfulness, especially from the "high tower in his mind," is certainly panoptic. D. A. Miller in "Discipline in Different Voices: Bureaucracy, Police, Family, and Bleak House," (1988) describes Bucket's detective story a simplification of power described in the novel; "…the detective story performs a drastic simplification of power …. For unlike Chancery, the detective story is fully prepared to affirm the efficacy and priority of personal agency, be it that of the criminal figures who do the work of concealment or that of the detective figures who undo it." [65] Miller suggests that Dickens uses Bucket as a detective in a murder mystery plot. He holds that nothing is left unfinished; on the contrary every event in the story has a beginning and an end. As he states "a civil suit becomes a murder mystery, and whereby the themes of power and social control are passed accordingly from the abyssal filiations of the law into the capable hands of the detective police." [ ibid., 63] It seems Miller has ignored Bucket's superhuman and considerable power. It is not a simplification, but in contrary, it shows the long line of power. This superhuman power is certainly panoptic. Dickens's description of Bucket in Bleak House confirms these characteristics. Skimpole calls him a "tamed lynx." [ Dickens,830] Bucket has "a watchful state expressed in every International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 70 hair of his head," and "a ghostly manner of appearing." [ibid., 308] He "mounts a high tower in his mind, and looks out far and wide," and he has a "watchful steady look," and a "miraculous" interpretation. [ ibid., 763] "Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he is here to-day and gone to-morrow-but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day." [ibid., 712] Foucauldian significance of Bucket is his participation in the far reaching network of the law (including the never ending Chancery court) which the detective police embody. No one seems to escape Bucket's gaze. Bucket's objects of surveillance are the court of chancery and the lawyer Tulkinghorn, Lord and Lady Dedlock, the stationer Snagsby and his wife, Jo, and even Mademoiselle Hortense.
In this deadlock of power the police can break out of limits to become a total, all-pervasive institution which is connected to the world of Chancery. The limitations which are imposed on him by different institutions are, for example as Sir Leicester retorts: "you know your duty. Do your duty; but be careful not to overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring my Lady's name into this communication, upon your responsibility-upon your responsibility…" [ ibid., 727] But finally we find out that he overcomes these constraints as the most powerful figure; Bucket is a powerful social force because he has the power to inspect and discover. For example, the police investigate Lady Dedlock's case with full power as Bucket states; "I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her-to save her, and take her his forgiveness. I have money and full power," [ ibid., 766] He convinces Sir Leicester Dedlock of his power by telling him that "I know so much about so many characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less, don't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board that would surprise me." [ibid., 726] Jo is also traced by the police's gaze on the matter of Lady Dedlock's secret. Jo who lives in Tom-All-Alone is an emblem of this poor area which is permeated by power relation and police's gaze. Dickens describes Jo as a production of these power relations; He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs; being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets. Only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him: native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee. [ibid., 640-1] Bucket told him he will see him as long as he is "above ground." The image of Bucket pursues Jo. He approves Bucket's omnipresence; "I am convinced that he would not remain in either place [a hospital or a workhouse] because he is obsessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way." [ibid., 773] Bucket has warned him because he "was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome." [ibid., 773] That's why Jo always escapes Bucket's gaze, "in his ignorance" believing that "this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." [ibid., 639] Mr. Snagsby, whose "chariot of imagination" is driven by Mr. Bucket, carrying two passengers; "Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn," [ibid., 354] recommends Jo "The one grand recipe remains for you-the profound philosophical prescription-the be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on! You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights (of the parliamentary sky) can't at all agree about that. Move on!" [ibid., 265] Thus Jo escapes Bucket it seems there is no way out of this intricate function of gaze.
Another character who is traced by Police is Mademoiselle Hortense, the deposed maid of Lady Dedlock. Mr. Tulkinghorn warns Ms. Hortense, a "troublesome" person, [ibid., 589] about her uninvited visits that "the law is so despotic here, that it interferes to prevent any of our good English

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citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits, against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady, and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline." [ibid., 589] After murdering Mr. Tulkinghorn she is under Bucket and his wife's gaze. She lives in their house. They watch her hovering about the deceased Tulkinghorn's place. Moreover, the term "normalization" acts as a goal for every disciplinary society. "A norm is a standard of some kind that a multiplicity of individuals must reach and maintain to perform certain tasks." [ibid., 47] This norm will act "as performance goals for each individual," [ibid., 47]. Ransom (1997) discusses that though it is "not to be seen in an immediately negative light." [47] but according to Kantian ethics, we must look for existential goals; Foucault is obviously playing a word game here, disciplines on this level have "norms" in a non-ldquo;normative" (or nonmoral) sense. If members of a group are to be trained to do something, one way to do it is to establish standards that will act as performance goals for each individual. [ibid., 47] Thus one of Foucault's objections to disciplinary society is on the matter of ethics. Although Bucket has these superhuman capabilities, sometimes his function of detection dominates ethical ends. [Miller,79] Mademoiselle Hortense, being arrested by Bucket, belittles his goal by posing an existential question; "Listen then, my angel," says she, after several sarcastic nods. "you are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?" Mr. Bucket answers "Not exactly." "That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you make a honorable lady of Her?" "Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket. "Or a haughty gentleman of Him?" cries Mademoiselle, referring to Sir Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! O then regard him! The poor infant! Ha! ha! ha!" "Come, come, why this is worse parlaying than the other," says Mr. Bucket. "Come along!" "You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me. It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu, you old man, grey. I pity you, and I des-pise you!" [Dickens,743] Bucket does not know how to answer Mrs. Hortense's questions. He just knows how to do his inspections. "His field of knowledge encompasses only facts. His work is totally phenomenological: what he sees is always what he gets. He never tries to go beyond the surface of his knowledge and fact to reach complete understanding." [Foran, 64] He cannot bring Tulkinghorn back to life, or restore Lady Dedlock's honor or Sir Leicester's dignity. This is where Foucault opposes disciplines and would act as a supporter of the idea of existence of a Foucauldian power in the novel.
Both Chancery-as-law and Police as representative of law were discussed as institutions advocating panoptic model of power relation. There is also another institution directly related to making law which is Parliament. It is for some few weeks that the state of nation had been in a dreadful state in the novel. "Lord Coodle would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no Government." [Dickens,592] England has had no pilot for some weeks. So what holds the country? Ransom (1997) explains that in disciplinary society "the mass is dispersed, but a "hold" on the persons is nevertheless retained." [ 50] According to Foucault, "with governance, then, inclinations are managed in such a way as to avoid dissent." [ibid., 31] The debilitated cousin symbolizes country "going-DAYVLE-steeple-chase pace." [Dickens,  The names which Dickens chooses are so identical and rhythmic that their relation is more noticeable than their specification. These names are introduced accidentally and in alphabetical order…Coodle, Doodle, Foodle, Goodle… which makes them witty because these relations are just a game and there's one in power in the mood of Foucault's notion of Panopticon in which anyone may come and exercise surveillance. "It is perfectly clear to the brilliant and distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and his retinue. These are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved…. And no others can appear upon the scene forever and ever." [ibid., 162] Although Dickens names Boodle and Buffy but anyone, Coodle, Goodle, Poodle, Buffy, Guffy, Luffy, etc. would be in panoptic tower and it would not make a change to power.
Barry Smart (2002) holds that "Discipline may (also) be taken over… by institutions that use it as an essential instrument for a particular end." [84] By disciplining individuals, these institution and organizations such as army, charity, medicine and religion make useful individuals, corresponding so well to Foucault's point that power punishes and rewards to make useful individuals, provoking philanthropic action and productive citizens. In these minor institutions, "nobody with a mission… cared at all for anybody's mission." [Dickens,423] They took a multitude of titles. They were "the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the Sisters of all the Cardinal Vitrues separately, the Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations." [ibid.,100] They followed their own goals, "their objects were as various as their demands," [ibid.,100] which in the end work for the good of power. As army rewards Woodcourt and titles him a "hero," and Sir Leicester calls George a faithful soldier who did his duty under discipline. [ibid.,792] Or Mrs. Jellyby is a useful individual for charity work. She watches Caddy and she's under her power. Mrs. Jellyby sees nothing but Borrioboola-Gha. Or we can see that Mr. Rouncwell does not believe in schools in Chesney Wold and he wants Rosa to be disciplined in their own schools for his own end. "will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say… that I do not regard the village school (of Chesney Wold) as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's wife?' [ibid.,397] Richard leaves Medicine believing that he has a different goal than Woodcourt; he says to Woodcourt "you can strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different creatures." [ibid.,603] Mr. Chadband and Mrs. Pardigle try to discipline people by religious sermons and Mrs. Snagsby is one of those people who are interested in religion. Mrs. Pardiggle believes "that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor, and applying benevolence to them like a strait-wastecoat." [ibid.,423] Esther is punished by religion of her godmother who reared her up "in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I (Esther) should live." [ibid.,513]

Conclusion
Bleak House is a novel of multiple layers portraying major and minor characters entangled in convoluted plots and subplots. This feature makes the novel a unique model for Foucault's conception of Panopticon. This study showed the scheme of institutions and organizations in Bleak House is panoptic and power is exercised through strategically net-like relations.
Three major institutions in the novel include the court of Chancery, the parliament and the detective police. The intrusion of these institutions in all strata of society in the novel shapes a panoptic structure. Institutional representatives such as detective Bucket, lawyer Tulkinghorn and the -oodles watch the characters from any classes. They penetrate everywhere and make it visible 60 ILSHS Volume 70 through a permanent and omniscient gaze. Their penetrations function as the light in Bentham's panoptic structure. There is no difference between aristocratic area of Dedlocks or poverty-stricken area of Tom-All-Alone's. This means that Lady Dedlock and Jo are under the same insecurity because of ever present eye of law. There are other minor organizations as well, with particular ends, in which surveillance rewards and punishes. Army, charity, medicine, school and religion are other aspects of a society in which compliant and deviant citizens are praised or excluded.
To conclude, Bleak House is the manifestation of the panoptical system of power; a view of power that observes characters by different institutions including, the bureaucratic structures of parliament, the court and the police. They are all means of a disciplinary power that survives in its complex relations.