All 12 Uses of
despair
in
Bleak House
- Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.†
Chpt 1-3
- …gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate—only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits.†
Chpt 10-12
- Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach.†
Chpt 13-15
- The suit, still undecided, has fallen into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else—and here I stand, this day!†
Chpt 13-15
- These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more terrible in its sound than any shriek.†
Chpt 34-36
- It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in despair.†
Chpt 37-39
- The client throws his hat and gloves upon the ground—tosses them anywhere, without looking after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and looks the portrait of young despair.†
Chpt 37-39
- One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair.†
Chpt 43-45
- Mr. Snagsby is behind his counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the traveller from despair.†
Chpt 46-48
- Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I—don't quite despair, but nearly.†
Chpt 49-51 *
- If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather not be told."†
Chpt 58-60
- With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!†
Chpt 58-60
Definition:
-
(despair as in: she felt despair) hopelessness; or distress (such as extreme worry or sadness from feeling powerless to change a bad situation)