Introduction the aim of the work

2.2 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THIS NOVEL

The book begins at Miss Pinkerton’s¹⁰ academy for young ladies, on the day of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley‘s departure. The reference letter prepared by Miss Pinkerton about Amelia commends her character and talents and recommends her highly for a position at the lexicographer’s. This is due in part because she has a rich and influential father and in part because Amelia is such a kind young woman. The note includes a short aside about Becky, who will accompany Amelia but who is to quickly move on to the family who expects her for employment.

As the preparations come to a close, and Amelia tells everyone goodbye, Becky emerges inconspicuously. No one notices her step into the carriage, but tears and goodbyes abound for Amelia. When Miss Jemima tries to slip Becky a dictionary - the school’s traditional parting gift to its students - as the carriage takes off, Becky flings it out the window, to Miss Jemima’s surprise.
After Rebecca rants about Chiswick, the narrator launches into Rebecca’s history. Rebecca’s French mother, of whom she does not often speak, is dead. Her father was a starving artist and for a time taught drawing at Miss Pinkerton’s school. He was a heavy drinker and was known to have beaten Rebecca and her mother. Despite this, Rebecca loved her father and missed him at Chiswick.
Rebecca picked up a saucy wit and an audacious, liberal nature from her impoverished situation and the countless conversations she had as a youth with her father’s friends. Therefore, Chiswick was an environment that smothered her. Having nothing else with which to occupy herself, she excelled in her studies, and even managed to earn an invitation from Miss Pinkerton to teach a music course in addition to the French that she was already regularly teaching.
She had a rather negative relationship with the headmistress, who at first misjudged Rebecca as meek. During Rebecca’s time at Chiswick, Minerva Pinkerton did everything she could to try to best her pupil. Rebecca and Miss Pinkerton had common interests: they both hated that Rebecca was at Chiswick and wanted her to leave. Miss Pinkerton finally got rid of Rebecca by recommending her for the position of governess for Sir Pitt Crawley‘s family.
While at Chiswick, Rebecca eventually attached herself to Amelia, who was the only girl at the school her treated her kindly. Amelia invited Rebecca to come stay at her home for ten days before going off to begin her governess duties. When the ladies arrive at the house, Rebecca meets Joseph Sedley, who is extremely shy and thus ineptly handles her advances. Rebecca whispers loudly to Amelia that she thinks Joseph is handsome, because she has already decided that she wants to marry him.
Joseph is a collector for the East India Company’s Civil Service. At the dinner table, Rebecca pretends to be familiar with Indian food but is soon overwhelmed by the intense spices. Later, Joseph and his father reflect on Rebecca, and Mr. Sedley insists that she is interested in Joseph. This information makes Joseph uncomfortable, so he leaves the house and stays away for two days.
Meanwhile, Rebecca continues to endear herself to Amelia’s family, and the young people plan a trip to Vauxhall. While Mr. Sedley thinks Rebecca would be a good match for Joseph, especially since she might be able to curb his conceit, Mrs. Sedley is less happy about the fact that Rebecca has designs on her son.
One evening, while Mr. and Mrs. Sedley are away, the children decide to remain at the house rather than go to Vauxhall. George and Amelia retreat from the drawing-room, and so Joseph and Rebecca have the opportunity to talk privately. Rebecca, with her apparent interest in Joseph and his exploits in India, inspires a boisterous effusiveness in him, and he nearly proposes but isinterrupted by dinner being served. The next morning, Joseph comes to the house much earlier than he normally would to see Rebecca and finds himself helping her make the green silk purse that she has been working on.
The narrator then explores a period in the past of George Osborne, Amelia’s childhood friend and love interest. He attended Dr. Swishtail’s notable school, where he became friends with William Dobbin after the older boy defended him against the school bully, Cuff. From that day forward, Dobbin became the leader of the school, where he thrived academically. He held George accountable for his improved circumstances and therefore permanently devoted himself to little George.
Back in the present, George tells everyone that he has invited Dobbin, who he respects as one of the best officers in the Regiment of Foot, to come to Vauxhall with them. When Dobbin arrives the next day, he happens upon Amelia singing, and immediately falls in love with her.
Everyone waits in heightened anticipation for Joseph to propose to Rebecca. Meanwhile, his father continues to grow disdainful of him, thinking that because his son is obese, loud, "effeminate" and vain, he doesn’t really care who he ends up marrying.
The five young people go off to Vauxhall. Dobbin is promptly forgotten when Amelia pairs off with George and Rebecca with Joseph. During their solitary walk, Rebecca and Joseph both feel that they have reached an important and climactic moment, but Joseph does not propose. The two couples then sit down to dinner and Joseph proceeds to get ridiculously drunk. George recruits Dobbin to take care of him and get him home.
The next morning, as Joseph is recovering from his encounter with the rack punch, George berates him for his behavior, denying that he was a "lion" and recounting that there was silly violence, singing, and an inability to stand involved. Joseph, utterly embarrassed, decides to flee to Scotland, leaving a note for Amelia and Rebecca apologizing for his abominable behavior. Rebecca, convinced that George is at fault for her dashed hopes, departs from the Sedleys
There is a lot of foreshadowing in these first three chapters. Here, we get a taste of what Amelia and Becky are like and how the author uses each as a foil for the other. Becky is sassy and manipulative; she tosses out Miss Jemima’s gift and then laughs when Amelia rebukes her. She can also employ a sweet and charming nature when she wants something, which is evident in her treatment of Jos.
Thackeray also provides a full characterization of Amelia. He uses her reputation at school to indicate to his readers that this is a likable, simple girl. There is also a bit of foreshadowing in the fact that Amelia is the only one in the school who is willing to be friends with Becky. This prepares the reader for her continued blindness when it comes to Becky’s conspicuous faults.
Thackeray does create sympathy for Becky by talking about her past. She does not come from wealthy nobility and is therefore on her own to make a name for herself in the world. Thackeray makes it clear that Becky’s past is a major factor in shaping the woman she becomes, even though her past is something she would much rather forget.
Thackeray uses exposition liberally in these first three chapters as a way of introducing his characters. Instead of relying on dialogue to reveal information, he spends many paragraphs away from the actual story to explain their backgrounds. The author continues this throughout the book, often spending entire chapters on exposition. The author will also interrupt his story to alert the reader to certain opinions and observations, a method that fits very neatly with the novel’s judgmental mood.
What Thackeray does with his characters can definitely be called metonymy, because each one is in his or her own way an embodiment of Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair is a place of selfishness and manipulation, obsession with appearances, materialism, and general ambition for all things considered ephemeral by the author. From the very beginning all of the characters are obsessed with their own images and place in society; each in his own way scrambles for a place in Vanity Fair, while the narrator ridicules them for it.
The narrator again takes a break from the storyline to describe how George and Dobbin became friends. This history is interesting because the reader finds out that at one point, Dobbin was the one that everyone admired, and that the only reason he allows George to walk all over him is that he considers him responsible for his success. Here, the author foreshadows Dobbin’s obsessive sense of commitment, which will manifest itself in his relationship with Amelia.
Rebecca continues to try to charm Jos, and it is clear that she is distancing herself more and more from her humble beginnings. She charms everyone in the household, and she does so without anyone really picking up on her scheming. Becky will continue to develop these skills as the story progresses.
The narrator employs dramatic irony while he observes Becky’s courting of Jos. He explains that Becky spent much of her time thinking about ways to reel in Jos Sedley and spent the rest of her time fantasizing about the life that she would have once they get married. Jos, on the other hand, never thinks of Becky in this way, always has petty things on his mind, and only finds that he is embarrassed when Becky is too forward.
The title of Chapter 4 is "The Green Silk Purse." This is a telling title. Becky is knitting this purse, and on the night when she finally sits alone with Jos, the climax of his conversation with her ends up being a question about this purse. The purse itself is a symbol of the society in Vanity Fair. It is flashy and insignificant, yet it is a preoccupation of both Jos and Becky.
Becky says that the purse is for anyone who might want a purse, which means that it is up for grabs for any of the characters. The green of the purse might very well represent Becky’s greed and indicates also the deception in her response. This is just another one of her tools for trapping the Sedley family, and clearly, entrapping a Sedley doesn’t take much.
Amelia Sedley, of good family, and Rebecca Sharp, an orphan, leave Miss Pinkerton’s academy on Chiswick Mall to live out their lives in Vanity Fair — the world of social climbing and search for wealth. Amelia does not esteem the values of Vanity Fair; Rebecca cares for nothing else.
Rebecca first attempts to enter the sacred domain of Vanity Fair by inducing Joseph Sedley, Amelia’s brother, to marry her. George Osborne, however, foils this plan; he intends to marry Amelia and does not want a governess for a sister-in-law. Rebecca takes a position as governess at Queen’s Crawley, and marries Rawdon Crawley, second son of Sir Pitt Crawley. Because of his marriage, Rawdon’s rich aunt disinherits him.
First introduced as a friend of George Osborne, William Dobbin becomes the instrument for getting George to marry Amelia, after George’s father has forbidden the marriage on account of the Sedley’s loss of fortune. Because of George’s marriage, old Osborne disinherits him. Both young couples endeavor to live without sufficient funds. George dies at Waterloo. Amelia would have starved but for William Dobbin’s anonymous contribution to her welfare. Joseph goes back to his post in India, claiming such valor at Waterloo that he earns the nickname "Waterloo Sedley." Actually he fled at the sound of the cannon. Both Rebecca and Amelia give birth to sons.
Rebecca claims she will make Rawdon’s fortune, but actually she hides much of her loot, obtained from admiring gentlemen. When she becomes the favorite of the great Lord Steyne, she accumulates both money and diamonds. In the meantime innocent Rawdon draws closer to Lady Jane, wife of Rawdon’s older brother, Pitt, who has inherited from the rich aunt.
When Rawdon discovers Rebecca in her treachery, he is convinced that money means more to her than he or the son whom she has always hated. He refuses to see her again and takes a post in Coventry Island, where he dies of yellow fever.
Because her parents are starving and she can neither provide for them nor give little Georgy what she thinks he needs, Amelia gives up her son to his grandfather Osborne. William Dobbin comes back from the service, reconciles old Osborne to Amelia, whereat Osborne makes a will leaving Georgy half of his fortune and providing for Amelia.
Rebecca, having lost the respectability of a husband, wanders in Europe for a couple of years and finally meets Joseph, Georgy, Amelia, and William on the Continent. Rebecca sets about to finish what she started to do at the first of the book — that is, to ensnare Joseph. She does not marry him, but she takes all his money and he dies in terror of her, the implication being that she has, at least, hastened his death.
At the end of the book Rebecca has the money necessary to live in Vanity Fair; she appears to be respectable. William has won Amelia. Rebecca has been the one who jolted Amelia into recognition that George, her first love, wasn’t worthy.
Little Rawdon, upon the death of his uncle Pitt and his cousin Pitt, becomes the heir of Queen’s Crawley. Little George,¹¹ through the kindness of Dobbin, has lost his distorted values obtained in Vanity Fair. The reader feels that these young persons of the third generation will be better people than their predecessors in Vanity Fair.
Thackeray is working in a long, long tradition of satire as beat-down. What an author is supposed to do is hold up to readers examples of their terrible, ludicrous, immoral, and otherwise bad behavior, then either mock them or lecture them until they cut it out. The ancient poet Juvenal started things off with his bitter rants attacking everything about the decadent, crumbling Roman Empire. Gradually the mood of satire shifted to include humor instead of just anger – the Middle Ages gave us Chaucer and Rabelais with their bathroom humor and sexual puns. The satire genre reached its highest peaks in the 18th century, with Voltaire, Fielding, Swift, Pope, and a bunch of other really funny, really cynical, sort of depressing authors, who wrote work after work after work pointing their fingers at all the different flaws in the human character. Greed, hypocrisy, ignorance, self-importance, promiscuity, and, of course, vanity each came in for their share of ridicule and scorn. Thackeray was heavily influenced by Fielding, and Vanity Fair is an updated version of satire, a withering look at the ways in which snobbery, rampant sexual and worldly appetites, and a total lack of care about other people permeate society.
This is a "canonical text," meaning that it’s one of a group of novels, poems, and plays that are almost universally acknowledged as important pieces of literary art and fundamental to the development of Western civilization. What’s interesting, though, is that at the time it was published, this novel could have been considered "popular fiction" as well. It was certainly what we would now call a bestseller, and because it was published serially (check out the "In a Nutshell" section), Thackeray needed to emphasize the thrills and chills of its plot to get readers coming back for more.
Thackeray’s narrator usually functions as our worldly and semi-jaded guide through the social world of the novel. He has been there, done that, and come back to show us the T-shirt. Through a combination of universal statements, little cutting asides, and a constant feeling of condescension, the narrator’s voice gains an authority with the reader that’s hard to shake off or question. Let’s check out how this works in a little section from the novel’s first chapter.
Although schoolmistresses’ letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could not see.
Amelia had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire -Lord Dexter’s granddaughter allowed that her figure was genteel
But Amelia is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley¹² was greatly puzzled how to act.
First, we come across a generalization that has the undisputable air of a wise and ancient proverb: "schoolmistresses’ letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs." This is written with an easy confidence, and we readers are supposed to react the way we would to any proverb: "Oh, yes, of course, how true – recommendation letters and gravestones do tend to be overly positive."
Next the narrator turns to give us the real scoop on this Amelia character. She turns out to be "fully worthy of the praises" of Miss Pinkerton. How do we know the narrator is telling the truth? Because he s not the kind of person who compliments without merit. Miss Pinkerton, for instance, he calls a "pompous old Minerva," showing us that he can call it like he sees it at all times.
Next we get a sense of exactly the kind of people Amelia goes to school with and what kind of place Miss Pinkerton’s Academy is. Pay attention to the way the narrator gives us a brief and crystallizing glimpse of Miss Saltire. What does she think is her most important quality? That she is the granddaughter of a Lord. From the parenthesis, we get a sense that she insists this fact about her social status has to follow any introduction of her own name. This is what gives her the ability to judge Amelia’s figure as "genteel" .
And finally there is a rebuff to the reader. Oh, all this time you were thinking I was telling you about the heroine of this work? Think again, you fools. Amelia "is not a heroine." And then, just when the narrator has been telling us how great Amelia is, he goes all negative on her. She has some appearance deficiencies and also is kind of an idiot, whose only states are "laughing and crying." The last few sentences of the quotation demonstrate that the narrator expects the reader not to form any impressions or opinions without his say-so. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads trying to figure things out, the narrator implies, I’ll tell you what to think and when to think it from here on out.
Almost 200 years before this novel was written, a guy named John Bunyan¹³ wrote the megahit allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s not a very subtle allegory – the main character is named Christian who goes on a long voyage to find the Celestial City . To get there, he and his friend Faithful have to go through all sorts of temptations and ten-commandment-breaking horrors. One of these is the fair held in the city of Vanity. This is an eternal fair where all kinds of worldly and selfish things are for sale. Christian and Faithful are having none of it, and Faithful ends up martyred because of his...um...faithfulness. See? We told you it wasn’t a very complex allegory.
In any case, for his own novel Thackeray jacks this idea of a world in which all different kinds of vanity are on display, and no one looks too deeply beneath the surface. Anyone who picked his novel in the 1800s would have immediately gotten the title reference. Now, of course, all we can think of is the magazine. But since it too was named after the place in Pilgrim’s Progress, it’s all good.
Lots of 19th-century writers grumble about how totally bogus endings in novels usually are. And it’s true. At the end of a work of fiction, readers expect one thing and one thing only – a fitting comeuppance for the bad guy (like the climactic, drawn-out, and creatively grotesque death of every action movie villain – picture the Emperor in Star Wars plummeting down that shaft and exploding) and an awesome prize for the good guy (who tends to win the love interest and is generally expected to live happily ever after). This kind of thing works just fine for formulaic novels and movies, but what if the whole point of your writing is to not be formulaic.
Starting with the subtitle of the novel, Thackeray lets us know that he is trying to overturn expectations. Seriously, "A Novel Without a Hero"? When’s the last time you came across a story that had no good guys at all? Instead, we get a bunch of flawed characters, some more so than others, but none one-dimensionally horrid or perfect. That’s why, when it comes time for the ending, the same old rewards and punishments routine just isn’t going to cut it, even if it’s what the readers want.
So what does Thackeray do? He goes for a twofold approach.
First part of the maneuver: Thackeray deals with the characters with the same realism that he has been using to describe them throughout the whole work. All along we’ve been waiting for Becky to really get it, right? After all, she maybe/probably slept with Lord Steyne, and maybe/possibly killed Jos. And she definitely abandoned and neglected her son. At the same time, it seems like Amelia is going to finally get something nice for a change, since her life has been spent pining for a dead husband and taking care of her son and parents without complaining too much.
But we don’t get our nice resolutions. Not by a long shot. Amelia does get a new husband in the end...but after so much waiting and yearning and loving from afar, Dobbin gets tired of her pretty quickly. Instead, he loves "his little Janey, of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world – fonder even than of his History of the Punjaub" – meaning that he loves a history book more than his wife. Meanwhile, Becky doesn’t do too badly at all. She ends up in Bath, a nice resort town, where " a very strong party of excellent people consider her to be a most injured woman" and where she develops a reputation for pious charity and gets to keep the proceeds of Jos’s life insurance!
Second part of the maneuver: After this elaborate and realistically amoral distribution of good and bad things, Thackeray is ready to blow the reader’s mind yet again. He zooms way out of the action and, suddenly, the characters that were real people just a paragraph ago are nothing more than toys in a puppet show. "Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out" are the last words of the novel. Puppets? That’s about as one-dimensional as a fictional character can get! In a few words, Thackeray seems to be undoing all of the work of the previous 800 pages. What gives?
We’ll throw out one idea. Maybe this is way to have his cake and eat it, too. See, he knows all about the formulaic, happily-every-after ending we all want. But if he writes this kind of black-and-white ending, then the characters will be revealed as the puppets they are and we will be able to walk away totally unaffected by the whole novel. But this way, when none of the characters one gets her just desserts, we are so scandalized that we cannot help having strong feelings about the characters as though they were real people. Which is when Thackeray can thumb his nose at us and remind us just how constructed everything we are reading really is.