Nicholas Nickleby

by

Charles Dickens

The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company Symbol Analysis

The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company Symbol Icon

The United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company symbolizes the way that self-serving people disguise their greedy and selfish intentions by falsely claiming to be acting altruistically and in the service of others. Early in the novel, Ralph attends a parliamentary meeting in which politicians decide whether to ratify a bill that will enable a muffin delivery business to come into existence. The bill would also shutter other competing muffin businesses. The novel makes it clear that Ralph, the politicians, and others attending the meeting want the bill to pass because it will financially benefit them.

However, when making arguments in support of the bill and the proposed muffin delivery company, the politicians don’t cite profits as a motivating factor to support passing the bill. Instead, they claim that the company will alleviate injustices faced by those currently working in the muffin business and will also help consumers avoid addictions to alcohol by widening the reach of muffin delivery, thus ensuring that consumers have access to healthy stimulation (in the form of muffins) instead of alcohol. The speeches are intended to be humorous in their ludicrousness. In that way, Dickens satirizes the self-serving nature of politicians and points out how they advertise their supposed good intentions to obscure their selfish motives. The business’s mouthful of a name further highlights the absurdity and irony of those politicians’ claims by showing how bureaucratic language can be intentionally byzantine in an attempt to obscure politicians’ self-interested motivations.

The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company Quotes in Nicholas Nickleby

The Nicholas Nickleby quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Greed and Selfishness Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

And after him, came the Scotch member, with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and established in the hearers' minds that there was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.

Related Characters: Ralph
Related Symbols: United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company Symbol Timeline in Nicholas Nickleby

The timeline below shows where the symbol The Muffin and Crumpet Delivery Company appears in Nicholas Nickleby. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
Greed and Selfishness Theme Icon
Power and Abuse Theme Icon
...already has an abundance of supporting investments behind it. He says the company is named United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company . Within 10 days, the price of shares will reach a premium. At that point,... (full context)
Greed and Selfishness Theme Icon
Altruism and Humility Theme Icon
...the meeting in Parliament. There, Sir Matthew Pupker introduces a bill to allow the company United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company to come into existence. Mr. Bonney makes a speech in support of the bill. In... (full context)