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Chapter 10
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
On Saturday, Miss La Creevy and Mrs. Nickleby discuss Kate’s new position. Miss La Creevy says that milliners (hatmakers) have dreadful lives and the work wears them to the bone. Mrs. Nickleby says she’s not sure that’s the case and argues that there must be some in the profession who live decent lives. Kate and Mrs. Nickleby then say goodbye to Miss La Creevy, as they’re moving out of her house to the empty house that Ralph owns. Kate is especially sad to leave Miss La Creevy. She’s grown quite fond of her landlady.
Miss La Creevy reveals that there might be a dark underside to Ralph’s apparent benevolence, as the job he’s secured for Kate could be overwhelmingly difficult. Kate’s fondness toward Miss La Creevy shows that she, like Nicholas, is intent on making friends and seems to be able to do that even in difficult situations, as she has just moved to a new city after her father died.
Themes
Newman comes to help Mrs. Nickleby and Kate move. Kate asks if she saw Newman the day that Nicholas traveled to Yorkshire, and Newman denies it. He says he’s been laid up with gout for three weeks. When they reach the house, Kate says it looks like the kind of place where a “dreadful crime” has been committed. Mrs. Nickleby remarks to Kate how kind it was of Ralph to find some furniture for them. It’s sparse, she thinks, but it’s nice to have something. Newman doesn’t tell them that he found the furniture of his own accord and also stoked the fire and supplied food for the pantry. After Newman leaves, for a moment, Kate wants to call him back because she is afraid of the house, but she tries to silence her fears.
Newman promised to help Nicholas in the letter he gave to Nicholas the day he left. With that in mind, when Newman assures Kate that he wasn’t present at Nicholas’s departure, he deflects credit for his generosity. Newman shows a tendency, exhibited by several other characters in the novel, to avoid recognition or attention for his own good deeds. That tendency comes into clearer focus when he refuses to tell Kate and Mrs. Nickleby about all the things he did to get their new house in order. That approach is contrasted with that of characters like Squeers and Ralph, who do everything they can to publicize their own virtue, even though their actions are almost always motivated by self-interest.
Themes
