William Makepeace Thackeray first published his novel Vanity Fair as a serial between January 1847 and July 1848. He subtitled the book “A Novel Without a Hero,” signaling a new type of novel. Having suffered bitterly himself due to what he considered societal constraints, he constructed a satire to blast those groups he had felt wronged him.

He introduces the reader to a carnival filled with individuals deserving of scorn before launching into a plot that incorporates one of the most independent, and unlikable, women in fiction, Becky Sharp, whose surname is entirely appropriate. As he countered the traditional biographical narrative established by Daniel Defoe, Thackeray featured details from the lives of several characters, all meant to represent various recognizable personality types. While not an allegory, Vanity Fair suggests one, beginning with its title derived from John Bunyan’s famous allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678 and 1684). Some characters also represented recognizable real figures, such as Lord Hertford (Lord Steyne) or members of Thackeray’s own family, including his own grandmother (Miss Sedley), his wife, Isabella Thackeray, and Amelia Sedley, while Captain Dobbin may have represented Thackeray himself.

Thackeray’s book caused much excitement, drawing criticism for various reasons. His cynical tone dismayed many; others complained that his most intelligent characters also proved duplicitous and untrustworthy, sometimes even vicious, while those characters with virtue proved dull, stupid, and unequal to the task. Yet another group charged Thackeray was a sentimentalist who spent too much effort in attempts to reveal something important about common people. While he suggested all sorts of vice, he seemed deliberately, and unrealistically, to avoid sex, and when it was present, the narrative voice, ostensibly another character in the story but identifiably that of Thackeray, intervened to intrude into and fracture the action.

The orphaned but incredibly ambitious, lowly born Becky Sharp moves in with her school friend, Amelia Sedley, established as Becky’s foil. Where Becky is ever mindful of her own needs, Amelia is sickeningly self-sacrificing. Where Becky proves a con artist of extraordinary skill and resources, Amelia functions totally without guile but not in an admirable way. When Becky fails at trapping Amelia’s brother, the overweight Jos Sedley, into marriage, she departs to serve as governess in Hampshire to the Crawleys.

There she sets her sights on the elderly and gullible Sir Pitt Crawley’s son Rawdon. The smitten Pitt wastes no time following his wife’s death to propose to Becky and becomes incensed to learn that she is already secretly married to his son. That news also greatly offends Rawdon’s wealthy aunt, a source of funds on which the couple had depended, and they must depart the comfortable lifestyle to live on their own.

Meanwhile, the Sedleys fall on hard times as Mr. Sedley loses his fortune when the Napoleonic Wars, which would culminate in Waterloo, threaten England. Amelia faces additional conflict with the disapproving father of her love, George Osborne, a silly and vain but handsome young man whose best friend, William Dobbin, convinces him to marry Amelia despite Mr. Osborne’s attitude. The three form a sad love triangle, with the penniless, disinherited Dobbin in love with Amelia.

Becky and Rawdon have borrowed and schemed in a desperate attempt to support themselves. Rawdon joins the army, as does Dobbin and Osborne, and they are joined in Brussels by Becky and Amelia. Becky flirts with Osborne, who is later killed. Dobbin escorts the grieving and pregnant Amelia back to the Sedley home, where her son Georgy is born. She remains so consumed by her passion for her dead husband and the baby as his extension that she cannot acknowledge Dobbin’s love for her.

While Georgy receives all the attention one child can stand, the Crawleys have a son whom Becky completely ignores, although Rawdon loves him. This characteristic somewhat redeems Rawdon, who, however manipulated by Becky, supports her various schemes and demands. Becky continues to deceive others and gamble away what money the Crawleys have, then forms a questionable alliance with Lord Steyne, who gladly fulfills all her material desires. The naive Rawdon at last finds his wife too revolting to tolerate when he discovers her in the early stages of making love with Lord Steyne. He elects to leave her and moves to India, where he tries unsuccessfully to gain custody of his son.

Becky has finally pushed a society accepting of some degree of scandal too far. Ostracized by all, she must move to the Continent, where she hopes to elude her creditors. There she accidentally meets Amelia, who has, again in contrast to Becky, regained most of her fortune through the return from India of Dobbin and Jos, as well as through the adoption of Georgy by his grandfather Osborne, who overcame his estrangement from Amelia.

Dobbin warns Amelia away from the disreputable Becky to no avail, until Amelia learns that her husband had plotted to run away with Becky while the families were in Brussels. Totally disillusioned, Amelia at last can put her worship of George’s memory aside to accept Dobbin’s marriage proposal. However, Jos does not escape Becky’s tentacles and dies mysteriously while they cohabitate. When Rawdon also dies in India, his son inherits his estate and refuses to ever see his mother again, although he grants her a pension. With her usual resolve and tenacity, Becky adopts a new identity as a grieving widow, devoted to the good of the misfortunate.

One of the great novels of the English language, Vanity Fair reflects the influence of various subgenres of fiction, including silver-fork fiction and the picaresque. Its wide reception by the public was incomparable to that of any other novel of the day. Those who found work by Thackeray’s great rival, Charles Dickens, vulgar or too sentimental for all but the most common taste appreciated Thackeray’s graceful style and its implication of social cultivation. At the same time, middle- and lower-class readers identified with the bawdy Becky Sharp as a poor girl who took advantage of the wealthy, a “have not” who swindles the “haves.” The novel has never been out of print and has been converted to various dramatic media.

Bibliography

Allen, Brooke. “Sadness Balancing Wit: Thackeray’s Life & Works.” New Criterion 19.5 (Jan 2001): 19–28.
Bruce, Donald. “Thackeray the Sentimental Sceptic.” Contemporary Review (June 1993): 313–321.
Peters, Catharine. Thackeray’s Universe: Shifting Worlds of Imagination and Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Tillotson, Kathleen. Novels of the Eighteen-forties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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