Richard Carstone Timeline and Summary

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• Richard is orphaned and becomes one of the main parties in the Jarndyce lawsuit.
• He gets a liberal arts education, learning all about Latin and not so much anything else. No one at his school bothers to teach him how to put effort into anything.
• At 19 he becomes a ward of John Jarndyce, along with his cousin Ada and Esther Summerson.
• When faced with the need to get a job, Richard picks medicine almost at random and is apprenticed to Mr. Badger for training. In reality he is fixated on winning the Jarndyce lottery.
• He falls in love with Ada.
• Bored with doctoring, Richard quits and re-apprentices himself into Kenge's office to become a lawyer. There all he does is pore over documents about the Jarndyce case day and night.
• He starts hanging out with Skimpole, a mooching parasite.
• Richard and Ada become engaged.
• He decides to ditch the law and instead buys an officer post in the army and starts training with Mr. George.
• Before Richard leaves for his army post, Jarndyce asks him and Ada to undo their engagement until they are older. Richard is furious but complies when Ada agrees.
• He grows increasingly more suspicious of and paranoid about Jarndyce and his interests. It's crazy-town.
• Richard hires Mr. Vholes to replace Kenge as his lawyer.
• As soon as Ada reaches the age of majority, they get married in a secret ceremony.
• Two months later, Ada comes to live with him in a tiny, horrible room above Vholes's office.
• Richard never stops obsessing about the case, even though he grows sicker and sicker.
• Woodcourt becomes his doctor and friend, but Richard is beyond help.
• Finally the Jarndyce suit is over because it has run out of funds to keep itself going.
• After hearing the news, Richard dies peacefully before seeing the birth of his son, Richard Jr.