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Chapter 5
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
Nicholas helps wrangle the horses of the overturned carriage. Afterward, Squeers commends him for looking after the horses. The man with the brother with six children thinks Squeers’s tone toward Nicholas is condescending. The other passengers then shower Nicholas with compliments. The passengers try to come up with ways to pass the time. One person asks if anyone knows any songs, but no one volunteers to sing. A gray-haired man then says that he could tell a story if they would like, though his story won’t be especially uplifting.
Nicholas shows that he is cool under pressure and that he is genuinely concerned with the well-being of others, as he moves to help secure the horses instead of focusing on how the crash has impacted him. Those actions earn accolades for Nicholas from other passengers but ire from Squeers, suggesting that Squeers doesn’t like to be upstaged and wants to show that he holds power over Nicholas.
Themes
The man’s story is called “The Five Sisters of York.” The story takes place in the 1500s in the city of York and concerns five maiden sisters. The sisters are beautiful, and the youngest sister, Alice, is vibrant and joyful. One day, a monk comes to their house. He criticizes them for wasting their time with embroidery. He tells them to renounce their attachment to worldly things and become nuns. Alice reacts strongly to what the monk says. She says the dreary coldness of a cloister is no match for the joys of the world. The monk grows angry and leaves.
The story of “The Five Sisters of York” begins by contrasting the joys of the world, and art in particular, with a dreary kind of religious asceticism. Dickens makes that comparison to argue that there is something good in and of itself in the act of living life to the fullest. Dickens also puts forth an idea about what is important in life. Namely, piety and religious devotion are less important than joy and vibrancy.
Themes
Years later, the monk returns. Alice has died, and the other sisters have become widows. He tells the sisters again that they should take vows to become nuns. The sisters ask for three days to deliberate. Ultimately they decide that they can’t go against Alice’s initial rejection of the idea. They tell the monk no. They then use their embroidery to design a stained glass window, which is installed in the church. One by one, the sisters die. Though their graves crumble and cannot be found today, the stained glass window remains.
Alice’s sisters show the same kind of loyalty toward Alice that Nicholas, Kate, and Mrs. Nickleby show toward one another as family members, underlining the novel’s argument about the virtue of loyalty toward one’s family. The story ends with a moral about how art can last in perpetuity while also making the world more beautiful and joyful. Arguably, the moral could also suggest that it’s possible to serve the church in a lasting way while remaining joyfully in the world, as the sisters do with the stained glass window.
Themes
A different man then tells another story, called “The Baron of Grogzwig.” This story concerns a German baron named Baron Von Koëldwethout. Baron Von Koëldwethout lives in an old castle that is said to be haunted. Despite that, the baron lives a happy life full of drinking and merriment. He marries the daughter of a different baron who lives nearby. Early in their marriage, the baron’s new wife demands that the baron disband his hunting party. The baron is reluctant to do so because hunting makes him happy, but he ultimately relents. Over time, his wife gains more and more control over him. The couple has 13 children, and the baron becomes increasingly unhappy. Then, he falls into debt.
Like the five sisters of York, the Baron of Grogzwig is initially happy. Again, Dickens makes an implicit argument about what the “good life” is. This story presents the “good life” as the ability to live a life of leisure filled with joy and merriment. At his wife’s urging, though, the baron stops doing the things he once enjoyed doing, suggesting that family and who one marries can lead to unhappiness as well as presenting new issues. Notably, like Nicholas Sr., the baron falls into debt, and that debt has the potential to further upend his life.
Themes
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The baron doesn’t know what to do. He’s lost all joy in life. He decides he’ll kill himself. He sits in a chair with a bottle of alcohol, smoking a cigar, with a knife by his side. Just then, an apparition appears. The apparition introduces himself as the Genius of Despair and Suicide. He urges the baron to get on with it and kill himself because he has a full schedule and has to keep moving. He tells the baron he has to visit a man who wants to kill himself because he has too much money and leisure. The baron scoffs. The Genius says it’s no worse of a reason to commit suicide than committing suicide because one has too little money.
The “full schedule” of the Genius of Despair and Suicide suggests that the world is full of despair and that there is no shortage of people who are ready to give up on life. That comes into clearer focus when the “Genius” mentions the man who intends to kill himself because he has too much money. Dickens implicitly argues that the specific reasons that one chooses to kill oneself aren’t really the point. Instead, people are driven to suicide because of their perspective on life.
Themes
Something shifts in the baron. He thinks that maybe the Genius has a point. The Genius is afraid he’s losing hold of the baron and reminds the baron of his lack of money, his controlling wife, and his 13 demanding children. The baron responds that nothing is impervious to change. He decides he won’t kill himself. Later, he gets out of debt, teaches his children how to hunt, and develops a better relationship with his wife. When he dies, he’s not rich, but he’s undeniably happy. When the man finishes telling the story, a new coach has arrived, and the passengers reboard.
The baron realizes that no state of affairs is final (other than, perhaps, death). Though the baron had reached the deepest depths of despair, he then turns his life around and regains the joy that once defined his life. The moral of the story is that no matter how bad things are, change is still possible. Therefore, despair can be interpreted as a sign that one must change one’s life rather than a sign that one should end it.
Themes
