This article examines linguistic disabilities in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (1838‒1839), focusing on the character Smike and his unrelenting struggle to overcome emotional and social crises through communication. In Dickens’s text, Smike is an 18-year-old boy portrayed as weak, ill and slow-witted, suffering from speech dysfluency or stuttering, though not pervasive. While stuttering is associated with Smike’s existential struggles and breathless grappling with life, this article suggests that his speech dysfluency evolves into a mode of resistance against the oppressive material culture of mid-Victorian society. Smike’s stuttering transforms into a rich linguistic mechanism that exposes the double standards of the Victorian public and the persistent gap between reality and fiction. When performing the Apothecary in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Smike speaks fluently, thus embodying the liberating power and the subjective experience of the theatrical space. Shakespeare’s play provides Smike with a powerful return to eloquent self-expression, a space where his language flows effortlessly. This article, accordingly, explores the impact of Shakespeare’s theatre on Smike’s linguistic performance and development, showing the grotesque nature of a mid-Victorian culture that continually linked human subjects to their physical utility.

Title

Scrutiny2

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Publisher Country

South Africa

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

0.1

Publication Type

Online only

Volume

--

Year

2025

Pages

--