Nicholas Nickleby

I always enjoy reading what Charles Dickens has written. In Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens spins a wonderful tale about a young boy, Nicholas, his sister, and his mother who are left destitute at the death of his father. He begs his uncle to help them, and he grudgingly gives them some token help. His uncle sets him up as a teacher in a boarding school. When the headmaster starts beating a crippled boy, Nicholas intervenes and beats the headmaster, ending his teaching career.

He finds another job acting in a theatre. He is at the height of his popularity when he gets a message that his sister is in trouble and needs his help. He instantly leaves his acting career and goes to defend his sister from an older man who is trying to take advantage of her. His actions against the man and the schoolmaster ruin his relationship with his uncle and his support is cut off. This begins a long feud between him and his uncle, who tries several times to destroy Nicholas.

Nicholas develops a close relationship with the crippled boy he rescued from the schoolmaster and he takes care of him and raises him like a younger brother. Nicholas is offered a great job and he becomes a respected man in the community. The crippled boy eventually dies and Nicholas is heartbroken. In addition to losing his best friend, his uncle schemes to take away the girl he loves, threatening Nicholas with the loss of all he loves.

But all of his uncle’s plans to destroy Nicholas backfire. His uncle eventually loses everything and is totally ruined. The last blow is that he learns the crippled boy was his son, born after he sent his wife away and raised by another family. He was told the boy died while he was still young, but the lie is uncovered after all he has been totally devastated financially and socially. The loss is too great for him and he commits suicide.

As he listens to the church bells ringing, he gives a moving speech before ending his life:

“Lie on! with your iron tongue! Ring merrily for births that make expectants writhe, and marriages that are made in hell, and toll ruefully for the dead whose shoes are worn already! Call men to prayers who are godly because not found out, and ring chimes for the coming in of every year that brings this cursed world nearer to its end. No bell or book for me! Throw me on a dunghill, and let me rot there, to infect the air!'

Dickens clearly contrasts the unfortunate end of Nicholas’ wicked uncle with Nicholas’ future. This is clearly demonstrated in the next two quotes, showing that the righteous are blessed in this life, in spite of their poverty, while the wicked are cursed, in spite of their wealth.

Another moving passage clearly shows that Charles Dickens had a profound empathy for the suffering of London’s poor, especially children:

“In every life, no matter how full or empty one’s purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise that life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other people’s store of it.”

The movie ends with a toast at a double wedding with a powerful description of what a family should be:

“What happens, if too early, we lose a parent, that party on whom we rely for only…everything. What did these people do when their families shrank? They cried their tears. But then they did the vital thing; they built a new family, person by person. They came to see the family need not be defined merely as those with whom they share blood, but as those for whom they would give their blood. It is in that spirit that we offer this heart-felt toast to the brides and grooms.”