Nicholas Nickleby

His father’s death catapults Nicholas from his idyllic country childhood into life as the main provider for his mother and sister in the city of London. While he is forced to navigate a world rife with corruption and inequality, he maintains his moral integrity throughout, refusing to compromise his principles to appease Ralph or Squeers, even though doing so would be in his financial interests. He is compassionate to Smike, offering him familial love and support for the first time in his short, brutal life.

Kate Nickleby

Kate Nickleby is the female counterpart of Nicholas. As a middle-class woman, Kate would not have expected to enter the job market, but upon her father’s death, like her brother, she is suddenly forced to engage with the corrupt financial world of the city. As a financially struggling woman, she is in a particularly vulnerable position, and her beauty attracts the attention of sexual predators such as Hawk. However, like her brother, she maintains her integrity and resists being corrupted by her surroundings.

Ralph Nickleby

Ralph Nickleby is the principal antagonist in the novel and stands in marked contrast to Nicholas as a character. While Nicholas resolutely refuses to compromise his integrity for financial gain, Ralph, as a professional money-lender, is fully invested in the corrupt financial web of the city. Unlike Nicholas, he is utterly lacking in compassion for the suffering of others and has no sense of family loyalty. Ralph’s lonely death by suicide invites comparison with Smike’s peaceful passing in the countryside, surrounded by the love of his adopted family. It reinforces the novel’s anti-materialist message and its focus on the importance of interpersonal connections.

Mr. Squeers

Like Ralph Nickleby, Squeers is driven by financial gain and shows no compassion for those less fortunate than himself. He is a sadistic bully and a coward. He lacks Ralph’s cunning, perhaps because he is lower-born and less educated, and as a consequence of this, he is the one to face the legal consequences of the pair’s misdeeds.

Smike

Smike is emblematic of the tragic consequences of neglect and abuse at an early age. Despite his biological relationship to Nicholas and Kate, he is a weak, broken character, unable to survive in the world. Haunted by the brutality of his upbringing and the prospect of being dragged away from Nicholas, the first person who has ever shown him any kindness, he can find no peace in life and only comes to rest in death.

Madeline Bray

Like Kate, Madeline illustrates the intense vulnerability of financially insecure women in a patriarchal, materialistic society. Like Kate, she maintains her integrity despite being surrounded by predators. She also resembles Kate and Nicholas in her boundless loyalty to her weak and impoverished father.

Charles Cheeryble

Unlike Ralph, Charles Cheeryble successfully navigates London without being corrupted by the city. He is successful but maintains his moral integrity, is happy to share his wealth with those less fortunate, and makes no attempt to dominate or abuse those weaker than himself.