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Chapter 36
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
For his first two weeks working for the Cheeryble Brothers, Nicholas steadfastly devotes himself to learning all he can about bookkeeping. Initially, Tim is apprehensive about the prospect of Nicholas taking over his role. When Tim sees Nicholas’s work, though, he is overjoyed. He thinks Nicholas’s work is perfect and says that he can now rest assured knowing that the business’s books will be well taken care of.
Again, Nicholas seems to be talented at everything that he tries. Tim’s devotion to the Cheeryble Brothers also reinforces the novel’s arguments about loyalty. In essence, the novel contends that treating other people well engenders loyalty in them, suggesting that the Cheeryble brothers are benevolent and generous employers.
Themes
The Cheeryble Brothers, Ned and Charles, and Tim’s sister later throw a birthday party for Tim. At the party, Tim’s sister tells stories of Tim’s youth. Near the end of the festivities, Ned and Charles raise a toast. They say that while this day blessed them with Tim, who is enormously important to them, it also commemorates the day their mother died. Nicholas is deeply moved by what Ned and Charles say. He also reflects on the shallowness and hypocrisy of people who would refuse to eat with Ned and Charles because they grew up in poverty, never went to school, and don’t always follow the dining etiquette that snobs insist on.
Ned and Charles are altruistic and generous in a way that Ralph is not. The novel implies that perhaps their humble beginnings make it easier for them to empathize with people who don’t have much. Ralph, on the other hand, inherited money from Godfrey and therefore never experienced poverty. The novel suggests that in part because Ralph never experienced that poverty himself, he lacks the capacity to empathize with those who are less well-off than him.
Themes
When Nicholas returns home after the party, Smike and Mrs. Nickleby are still awake. Nicholas regales them with stories from the party. When Smike goes to bed, Mrs. Nickleby tells Nicholas about their neighbor. The gardens of both houses are adjoined, and the neighbor has taken to throwing cucumbers over the separating wall in a sign of affection toward Mrs. Nickleby. And when she stands by the window, sometimes she will see the neighbor kiss one hand while holding the other over his heart. Nicholas is surprised that his mother is entertaining these advances when he considers it out of the question that Mrs. Nickleby would remarry anytime soon. Despite himself, he is also amused. Mrs. Nickleby says of course she doesn’t take the man seriously. When Nicholas leaves, Mrs. Nickleby thinks that even if she won’t marry the neighbor, she’s flattered by the attention.
While Mrs. Nickleby tells Nicholas she doesn’t take the neighbor seriously, she privately considers the neighbor’s attention seriously enough to be flattered by it. Nicholas’s amusement about his mother’s prospective suitor suggests that he recognizes there’s something fundamentally humorous about the whole affair, not so much in the fact that someone might be romantically interested in his mother, but in the way that the neighbor is expressing that interest. Given Mrs. Nickleby’s tendency to misread social situations, it’s also worth wondering whether her understanding of the situation is entirely accurate.
Themes
