Kate gets a Dressing-Down

Kate Nickleby must bite her lip as she experiences snobbery for the first time.

1839

Introduction

This post is number 3 in the series Nicholas Nickleby (Novel)

After falling on hard times, Kate Nickleby, daughter of a country gentleman, has gratefully accepted a job in a dressmaker’s. But a mother and daughter have come in, and being in an ill temper have chosen to take it out on the new assistant.

by Charles Dickens 1812-1870

SHE was awkward — her hands were cold — dirty — coarse — she could do nothing right; they wondered how Madame Mantalini could have such people about her; requested they might see some other young woman the next time they came; and so forth.

Kate shed many bitter tears when these people were gone, and felt, for the first time, humbled by her occupation. She had, it is true, quailed at the prospect of drudgery and hard service; but she had felt no degradation in working for her bread, until she found herself exposed to insolence and pride.

Philosophy would have taught her that the degradation was on the side of those who had sunk so low as to display such passions habitually, and without cause: but she was too young for such consolation, and her honest feeling was hurt. May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs?

by Charles Dickens 1812-1870

From ‘Nicholas Nickleby’, by Charles Dickens

Next in series: Mrs Nickleby’s Cold Cure

Précis

Kate Nickleby has been subjected to a barrage of unwarranted abuse and criticism by a customer in the dress shop where she works. It is the first time she has been treated snobbishly, and she is bewildered by the sense of worthlessness, but as Dickens says, the shame lies not with the abused, but with the abuser.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What did Kate do to annoy Madame Mantalini’s clients?

Suggestion

Nothing, they were determined to find fault.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Two ladies criticised Kate. Their criticisms were unfair. Kate could not defend herself.