Social unrest lies latent in Bleak House and there are moments when it certainly appears viable the "day is not far off" when the lower orders will take their revenge for this harsh and stifling oppression. Dicken's owed a great deal of his social spirit to the work of Thomas Carlyle. His influence certainly touches elements of Bleak House. Whereas the Chartist is described by Carlyle as one to who "the four-and-twenty letters of the Alphabet are still Roman enigmas to him-, Bleak House notes how it must be strange for a figure like Jo "to see people read and not to have the least idea of all that language -to be every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb". (BH 257) (Oddie, 1972: 143).
The only way the lower classes can raise their voice or even intergrate themselves into the system is through disease. Between 1848-49 there was an outbreak of Cholera in London which in itself highlighted that the plight of the lower classes could no longer ignored. In the novel Tom-All-Alone's is described as being .
able to "polute, this very night, the choice stream of a woman's house through every door of society". (BH 710) That the disease leaves Esther permanently scared, suggests that the lower classes are rising up to take their revenge for years of suffering. In fact, this hidden fever impels a life force into Tom-All-Alones. It is a place that feeds of the life blood of its inhabitants. It is alive with "horrible faces [that] fade away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning-(BH 358). This is hell, and "the blackest nightmare in this infernal stable grazes on Tom-All-Alones, and Tom is fast asleep" (BH 708) (Storey: 59). Their point of view, "blasted by volcanic fire" (BH 708) and near to eruption is considered potentially dangerous. That the place is given a Christian name illustrates that the people and the place are one and the same thing.