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Chapter 35
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
Mr. Kenwigs buys the smallest pair of kid gloves he can find. He wraps them around the knocker on the door to muffle the sound and make sure that Mrs. Kenwigs, who is pregnant and expected to give birth soon, won’t be disturbed when people visit. In the house, Mr. Kenwigs talks to the doctor, Dr. Lumbey. They talk about how many more children the Kenwigses might have. Mr. Kenwigs adds that his wife has a relation who might leave each of his children a sizeable inheritance.
Mr. Kenwigs implies that their decision to have children is in part based on their expectation that Mrs. Kenwigs’s relation (Mr. Lillyvick) will pass on his money to those children, thus ensuring their wealth and good fortune. That assertion is an example of dramatic irony, as the reader already knows that Mr. Lillyvick has married, which means that Mr. Kenwigs’s children will most likely not inherit his money.
Themes
Nicholas arrives at the Kenwigses’ house. He says he has a message to relay to them. The Kenwigses are all excited to see him. (They still refer to him as Mr. Johnson.) Nicholas says he brings news from Portsmouth and has a message from Mr. Lillyvick. The message is that Mr. Lillyvick and Henrietta have been married. Mr. Kenwigs flies into a rage. He says that his children have no chance in life now because they won’t receive an inheritance from Mr. Lillyvick. He says they may as well be dead and that he should ship them off to the orphanage, now that they have no inheritance coming. He curses Mr. Lillyvick and calls him a traitor. At first, people nearby tell Mr. Kenwigs to quiet down, but when Nicholas explains the news, they try to console him. Mr. Kenwigs then goes to rest, and Nicholas leaves.
While Mr. Kenwigs’s reaction seems decidedly over the top, it’s telling that once people hear that Mr. Lillyvick has married, thus depriving the Kenwigses’ children of an inheritance, they act sympathetically toward Mr. Lillyvick. That reaction makes clear the power that money has in the world that Dickens depicts, as it can make or break one’s life. That further clarifies the position that Kate and Nicholas found themselves in at the beginning of the novel, as they arrived in London with no money and no inheritance from their father, a fate that at least Mr. Kenwigs considers comparable to death.
Themes
