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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nicholas Nickleby, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed and Selfishness
Power and Abuse
Altruism and Humility
Family and Loyalty
Injustice, Complicity, and Moral Integrity
Summary
Analysis
Near Golden Square in London, there is a street lined with houses that have fallen into disrepair. Newman lives in the attic apartment of one of those houses. A neighbor named Mr. Crowl knocks on Newman’s apartment door and asks if Newman is ready to go to the Kenwigses’ apartment. The Kenwigses are throwing a party to celebrate their wedding anniversary. At the party, Mr. Kenwigs and Mrs. Kenwigs await the arrival of Mrs. Kenwigs’s uncle, a man named Mr. Lillyvick, who works in collecting payments for water utilities. Mrs. Kenwigs says he’s a great man, and one of the party guests replies that he’s sure it causes Mr. Lillyvick terrible pangs of sympathy when he shuts someone’s water off. Mr. Kenwigs replies that while Mr. Lillyvick is a public figure and therefore accustomed to criticism, Mrs. Kenwigs deserves no such disparagement.
The sarcastic comment from one of the Kenwigses’ guests that Mr. Lillyvick must feel bad when he shuts off people’s water shows the tension between those with less money and those with power. In the world Dickens depicts, people with less money are frequently exploited and victimized by people in power. And people in power rarely show any pangs of conscience for the way that their actions harm others. Mr. Kenwigs notably doesn’t defend Mr. Lillyvick when he hears that comment. Instead, he only defends Mrs. Kenwigs, suggesting that even if he doesn’t outright agree with the guest’s comment, he sees enough merit in it that he doesn’t try to refute it.
Themes
Literary Devices
Mr. Lillyvick arrives. During the party, Mrs. Kenwigs remarks that her four daughters are too beautiful to live in this world for long. Her daughters are alarmed at the statement and cry in her lap. Mr. Lillyvick says that Mrs. Kenwigs’s family objected to her marriage to Mr. Kenwigs because he was not from the same social class. But, Mr. Lillyvick says, Mr. Kenwigs proved to be a good husband, and he (Mr. Lillyvick) has come to wholeheartedly approve of him. Mr. Crowl then finds Newman at the party and tells him that two men are looking for him.
The novel again underlines the tensions of class and socioeconomic status that animate much of the story. In this case, Mr. Lillyvick reminds Mr. Kenwigs, perhaps in an ungracious way, that he (Mr. Kenwigs) doesn’t come from the same socioeconomic status as Mrs. Kenwigs. While Mr. Lillyvick reassures Mr. Kenwigs that he’s okay with the disparity in their statuses, the way he talks about that difference in status and his condescension toward Mr. Kenwigs implicitly reinforces the class divide.
Themes
