Nancy murdered by Sikes

Nancy's murder by Bill Sikes is the novel's most brutal and consequential act of violence, marking the point at which the criminal underworld's internal logic of betrayal and retribution erupts into irreversible tragedy, and setting in motion the final chain of events that leads to Sikes's own death and the gang's destruction.

Background and Causes

Nancy's murder was the direct result of her secret meeting with Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow on London Bridge, a meeting that had been observed and reported by Noah Claypole, whom Fagin had set to spy on her. Fagin, having long suspected Nancy of disloyalty, had employed Noah to follow her, and the spy had overheard every word of her conversation with the gentleman and the young lady, including her description of Monks and her revelation of the gang's meeting place. When Fagin learned the full extent of Nancy's betrayal, he did not confront her himself but instead chose to weaponize the information against Sikes, knowing that the housebreaker's violent temper would do the work for him. The Jew, sitting in his old lair with Noah asleep on a mattress, waited for Sikes to arrive, and when the robber appeared, Fagin, with deliberate and devilish precision, extracted the full story from Noah in Sikes's presence, each detail designed to inflame the housebreaker's rage.

The Murder

Sikes, upon hearing that Nancy had given him a dose of laudanum to enable her escape, broke free from Fagin's grasp and rushed to his own room, where Nancy lay half-dressed on the bed. The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the two to see each other's faces. Sikes, with dilated nostrils and heaving breast, grasped Nancy by the head and throat and dragged her into the middle of the room. Nancy, wrestling with the strength of mortal fear, gasped out that she would not scream or cry, and begged him to tell her what she had done. When Sikes told her she had been watched and every word heard, she clung to him and pleaded for her life, reminding him that she had spared his and that she had been true to him upon her guilty soul. She told him of the home in a foreign country that the gentleman and the dear lady had offered her, and begged him to let her see them again so that she could ask them to show the same mercy to him, and that they might both leave that dreadful place and lead better lives. But Sikes, freeing one arm, grasped his pistol; the certainty of immediate detection if he fired flashed across his mind, and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon upon her upturned face. Nancy staggered and fell, nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead, but raising herself with difficulty on her knees, she drew from her bosom a white handkerchief—Rose Maylie's own—and holding it up in her folded hands as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker. The murderer, staggering backward to the wall and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down.

Aftermath and Consequences

The murder was the foulest and most cruel of all the bad deeds committed under cover of darkness within London's bounds that night. The bright sun, bursting upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory, lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay, and Sikes, unable to shut it out, was forced to confront the ghastly sight. He kindled a fire and thrust the club into it, watching the hair upon its end blaze and shrink into a cinder; he washed himself and rubbed his clothes, cutting out the spots that would not be removed and burning the pieces. He moved backward towards the door, dragging the dog with him lest he should soil his feet anew, and left the house. The murder set in motion the final pursuit that would end with Sikes's own death on Jacob's Island, where, attempting to lower himself from a roof by a rope, he lost his balance and was hanged by the noose he had prepared for his escape. The news of the murder also contributed to the pressure that led to Fagin's trial and execution, and it was the final, irredeemable act that shattered the gang and brought the novel's criminal plot to its violent close.