Thackeray's Thackeray's Metaphor of Society as a Fair

Vanity Fair illustrates how society can be perceived as a performative, constructed sphere of costumes, face paint, illusion and clamor.
Thackeray’s introduction to Vanity Fair introduces his extended metaphor of nineteenth-century English society as a fair. Titled “Before the
Curtain”, the preface immediately associates society with spectacle, glitter, and performance, and also casts social relationships in terms of
roles, scripts, and performancesBefore the Curtain: Performance in Society.A fair is consciously performative; it evokes visions of costumes,
theater, shows, games, contests, and so on. Yet society can also be viewed as a very performative, constructed sphere of costumes, face paint,
illusion and clamor.In “Before the Curtain”, Thackeray’s narrator lauds his “Becky Puppet”, “Amelia Doll”, and “Dobbin Figure”; while
characters in a book are always controlled by the author, this explicit extended metaphor of society as a fair is effective mostly because of the
performative nature of societyThe characters are puppets not only of the author but also of society, prompting readers to wonder if they too
are nothing more than puppets, dangling on society’s strings.

Goffman and Personal Fronts: Everyday Acting

Today, like in nineteenth-century England, people constantly reinvent themselves in an attempt to reach an envisioned ideal, or role, dictated
by culture. We paint ourselves with makeup and dress in certain clothes in an attempt to “look the part”; we speak in terms of “putting your
best face forward”.Erving Goffman, in his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, terms this notion of appearance one’s
“personal front”, which can include “insignia of office or rank; clothing; sex, age, and racial characteristics; size and looks; posture; speech
patterns; facial expressions; bodily gestures; and the like” (24).He also notes that “a performer tends to conceal or underplay those activities,
facts, and motives which are incompatible with an idealized version of himself and his products”(48). We try and “act the part” to conform
accurately to an ideal; “fronting” even exists in our lexicon as a slang term for acting as someone you’re not, or misrepresenting
oneself.Goffman’s term “front” is suggestive in terms of physicality. If our painted, primped “front” is what we show in public, what else
remains of us? Do we have a more genuine side or true inner self, or are we only the carefully designed facade we present to others?

The Ultimate Emptiness of Performance

Vanity Fair is a setting of gaiety and frivolity, but the manager, watching from backstage, admits it is an unsatisfying kind of merriment. He
feels a “profound melancholy” as he watches the clamor and glitter, and says to the reader, “Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place
certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy” (3).His discontent sharply contrasts with the glee below; this contrast of public gaiety and
private misery is developed throughout the novel, and ultimately illustrates the hollowness of Vanity Fair.

References Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.

Vanitas and Emptiness in Thackeray's Vanity Fair

The Book of Ecclesiastes – Spiritual Emptiness and Problems of Pride

Thackeray's Vanity Fair portrays a society full of spectacle and sensation, yet empty of meaning and devoid of genuine relationships. In the
book of Ecclesiastes, an author introduced as “son of David, and king in Jerusalem” discusses the futility and bleakness of life in the face of
certain death. Two millennia later, the same struggle with meaning is portrayed in William Makepeace Thackeray’s masterpiece Vanity Fair,
serialized in 1847-1848.

Vanity Fair: A Superficial Society with “No Room for a Hero”

Vanity Fair portrays upper-class society in early nineteenth-century England, a society full of spectacle and sensation, yet empty of meaning
and devoid of genuine relationships. Underneath the gaiety and laughter lies a dense, impenetrable layer of unacknowledged boredom and
discontent.Subtitled A Novel without a Hero, the novel’s characters all act selfishly in order to further their own gain. The superficial, empty
society of Vanity Fair has no role for a hero.

Emptiness and the Moral Depravity of Society

The hollow emptiness at the core of Vanity Fair contrasts sharply with its ritzy appearance and constant consumption. This emptiness limits
the ability of the characters to act morally.Arguably, Becky is the most heroic of the cast, and it is the depravity of society, as opposed to
innate moral weakness, that limits her to immoral schemes, worthless ambitions, and empty rewards.

Ecclesiastes 1:2: Vanity of Vanities in Thackeray’s Novel

At the end of the novel, right before the curtain falls on Vanity Fair, Thackeray quotes Ecclesiastes 1:2 (‘Vanity of vanities, saith the
Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity’). Today the word vanity carries connotations of pride and narcissism, which are certainly
applicable to the self-involved, consumer-oriented society of Vanity Fair.However, the term ‘vanity’, as used in Ecclesiastes, originally
meant “emptiness”:"The vulgate vanitas [bears] the idea of “unreality”, “fruitlessness”, “emptiness”, “worthless”. The idea is carried on in
the modern translations by “vanity”, vanite, Eitelkeit, or eitel. Podechard, Zapletal, Hertzberg, Barton, and Williams find the root meaning of
the word to be “breath” or “vapor” and hence that it signifies “what is without consistency or lasting quality” (Staples 95).
Connecting Pride and Emptiness

This connection between pride and emptiness carries important implications for Vanity Fair. It is not only a society of conceit and self-
obsession, but one that ultimately remains empty, despite the glitter and spectacle.It is surreal, passing by in a breath, leaving nothing
substantial. This emptiness stands in sharp contrast to its initial appearance of bounty and wealth. Conspicuous consumption fills the pages of
Vanity Fair, but it cannot fill the society’s void of spiritual emptiness.

Appearances and Reality in Vanity Fair Insincerity and Deception in Thackeray’s Novel
Superficial appearance and illusion trump truth and reality in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair. As A. E. Dyson notes, “Vanity
Fair is as much pleased with the appearance as the reality” (85). The scene in which Rawdon discovers Becky and Steyne reveals this
reliance on appearances.

Appearances: Becky and Steyne’s Adultery

Rawdon is released from debtor’s prison by his sister Jane; Becky had written him a note saying she was sick in bed and could not come
help. But upon arriving home, Rawdon encounters his wife glittering with diamonds and entertaining another man.It is a compromising
scene: suggestive, but not damning. But a hint of adultery proves identical to actual proof.At the end of the scene the narrator asks, “What
had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not; but who could tell what was truth which came from those lips; or if that corrupt heart
was in this case pure?” (564).The question is never answered, because it isn’t important. As Wheeler notes, what is important is that“Becky’s
‘credit’, with her long-suffering husband and with society at large, is no longer good: ‘All her lies and her schemes, all her selfishness and
her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy’. For years she and Rawdon have been ‘living well on nothing a year’ in
Curzon Street. In other worlds, like some financiers in the City, they have lived on credit and confidence, running up large debts […] Now
Becky’s moral bankruptcy leads to the bursting of this more mercenary bubble, and the Crawley household breaks up in disarray”
(49).Becky’s failure to maintain moral appearances— whether or not her actions were actually immoral – destroys her marriage and
financially ruins her and Rawdon. Because of this financial destruction, she is unable to “keep up appearances” and live in the extravagant
manner to which she had become accustomed.The trumping power of appearance is clearly displayed by this scene; the reality of it doesn’t
matter. The light shining in the house as Becky is supposed to be asleep in bed is enough to illuminate her guilt.

A Fair as Illusion and Deception

A fair is composed largely of illusion and spectacle, a sort of “public front” similar to Goffman’s notion of the personal front.Vanity Fair
consists of endless carefully created illusions— faked affections for useful acquaintances or rich relatives, extravagant lifestyles resting on
fragile credit, secretly applied rouge, bottles of cognac hidden under Becky’s sheets.And again, Goffman’s term “front” suggests some other,
different, less composed, more secret side.

The Ultimate Insincerity of Society in Vanity Fair

It is this implicit charge of falseness and fakeness that underlies Thackeray’s piercing satire. Society is revealed to be nothing more than a
clamorous crowd of people wearing costumes, making gambles, playing games, and striving to win prizes.A fair has an explicit underside; it
is a place of gaiety, but it is also a place of the grotesque, the deformed, the mangled, the disgusting. Above all it is sensational, fantastic,
gripping. Everything is extreme, exaggerated, and in excess — the garish face paint, the soaring rides, the decadent foods, the commotion of
noises and crowds of people.But while a fair is a place of spectacular glitter and flare, it is also flimsy. Its tents and shacks are made to be
temporary, designed to be taken down.And the fair is also a place of overt insincerity. People attend fairs to gape, to parade, but not to love
or befriend.Similarly, if in society we are always dressed up in costumes, playing games, and striving to win prizes, how can we ever form
genuine relationships? Rather than encouraging interpersonal relationships, a fair encourages impersonal consumption.

References:Dyson, A.E. "Vanity Fair: An Irony Against Heroes." Twentieth Century Interpretations of Vanity Fair. Ed. M.G. Sundell. New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1969. 73-90.Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books,
1959.Wheeler, Michael. English Fiction of the Victorian Period 1830-1890. London: Longman Group Limited, 1985.

Analysis and Commentary of Thackeray's Protagonist

Thackeray's prime villain in Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp, is also the most heroic character of the novel. Vanity Fair is subtitled A Novel without
a Hero; indeed, no moral paragon or clear champion emerges from the glittering, sordid society portrayed in the text. Thackeray’s prime
villain, Becky Sharp, however, is also the most heroic character of the novel.

Becky Sharp’s Dissatisfaction with Vanity Fair

Throughout the novel, Becky is the most socially mobile of the characters, the most ambitious, the most demanding, and the most honest
with herself.Taught by society that status and wealth are the most important goals, she sacrifices everything to attain them, but is honest
enough to admit to herself that she is unimpressed by her achievements: “she moved among the very greatest circles of the London fashion.
Her success excited, elated, and then bored her” (531).Becky’s honest reaction reinforces the lesson of Thackeray’s show: Vanity Fair is not
satisfying, and the goals it esteems are not worth reaching. As Becky reaches the pinnacle of social success, the narrator breaks in to
warn,“do not envy poor Becky prematurely—glory like this is said to be fugitive. It is currently reported that even in the very inmost circles,
they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion and saw the great
George IV face to face, has owned since that there too was Vanity” (531).Becky is heroic both for scaling the heights of society — a feat no
other character manages so well — and also for being honest with herself, despite her ability to charm and deceive everyone else.

Becky Sharp’s Dissatisfaction with Conspicuous Consumption.Social success is exposed, through Becky, as unfulfilling. Similarly, the
trappings of wealth and glamour, the conspicuous consumption that marks nearly every page of the novel, are revealed as unsatisfying:
“Becky had a dozen admirers in his place, to be sure, and could cut her rival to pieces with her wit. But, as we have said, she was growing
tired of this idle social life: opera-boxes and restaurateur-dinners palled upon her: nosegays could not be laid by as a provision for future
years: and she could not live upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves. She felt the frivolity of pleasure and longed for more
substantial benefits” (384).Becky longs for something more than the empty vanity of society, something more substantial than the flimsy
“public front” of Vanity Fair. She is not satisfied by “knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves”; she is equally bored by her crowd
of admirers.Here, again, commodities and people merge together into the same category. Becky’s dissatisfaction represents Thackeray’s
condemnation of Vanity Fair, and implicitly demands something more worthwhile than this empty frivolity of costumes and farce.

Courage versus Piety: A Hero Without a Cause

Becky undoubtedly has courage, the true mark of a heroine. She has the audacity to chase after her goals instead of pacifying herself with
mere dreams of money or grandeur.And when her winnings prove less satisfying than society had promised, she has the courage to admit she
is unhappy. She does not cling to false ideals, like Amelia, or false hope, as Dobbin does.She is arguably the most immoral of the cast, but as
Dorothy Van Ghent points out, Becky’s aptitude and spirit nearly redeem the emptiness of her goals and the moral repugnance of her
actions:“Becky’s activities are designed with intelligent discrimination and lively intuition, and they are carried through not only with
unflagging will power but with joy as well. By representing her world at its highest energetic potential, by alchemizing all its evil but stupid
or confused or formless impulses into brilliantly controlled intention, she endows her world with meaning” (31).She has not only the courage
to attempt the impossible, but also the resilience to keep trying after disappointments, to persevere in the face of defeat. Becky is a heroine
without a cause, a knight forced to joust with plastic lances at a child’s carnival.

Thackeray’s Negative Portrayal of Piety in Vanity Fair

In fact, Becky very nearly overturns Thackeray’s social commentary, because even in the sordid mess of glitz she is able to fight:“Becky is
the happiest person in the book; she is alive from beginning to end, alive in intelligence and activity and joie de vivre, whether she is
throwing Dr. Johnson’s dictionary out of a coach window, in superb scorn of the humiliations of the poor, or exercising her adulterous charm
on General Tufto, whether she is prancing to court to be made an ‘honest woman’ (in stolen lace), or hiding a cognac bottle in a sordid bed.
From Becky’s delighted exercise in being alive, we can learn nothing about the happiness to be derived from humble dutifulness” (Van
Ghent 29).“Humble dutifulness” is not portrayed positively in the novel. Becky’s sudden shows of piety towards the end of the book are
barely mentioned, and appear to be closer to a comfortable life of surrender: “she busies herself in works of piety. She goes to church, and
never without a footman. Her name is in all the Charity Lists” (730).Amelia, perhaps the most sacrificing and pious character in the show, is
also probably the most naïve and the most miserable. Neither humble piety nor shameless immoral ambition brings satisfaction in Vanity
Fair.

Vanity Fair: A Society without a Hero

Becky does not achieve anything of real value, but this is due to the faults of society, not to her moral failures. Vanity Fair has no hero in its
cast of characters. There is no durable love in Vanity Fair, only brief fireworks of lust. There is no real glory to be won.A fair may offer
games of both luck and skill, but everything is rigged, and there is nothing to be won but a token, fun for a moment but then shoved in a
closet, forgotten.If Becky never accomplished anything, it is because she never had a worthwhile goal to strive for. If she never truly loved
anyone, it was because no man could match her. Becky Sharp’s Lack of Options

It may initially appear that Becky has made poor choices, but the deeper problem is that she was never given any choices. An honest
appraisal of her options puts her immorality into perspective. Surely heroes should not lie, cheat, and manipulate, but Becky is tarnished by
society, dirtied by the filth in which she lives.As A. E. Dyson notes, Vanity Fair is a backward, perverse society: “Almost every sin in Vanity
Fair can be traced beyond personal weakness, to the fundamental laws of money and class; to fawn upon the rich and kick the poor is a
Christian law of the land” (82).It could be argued that this sick society was created by the innate moral weakness of people. However, people
are sickened by the society, and that the picture of human nature in Vanity Fair is not as bleak as it might seem.Becky is a hero, living in mud
and squalor, her spirit strong enough to survive the cruelties of the circus. If she can survive this, she can survive anything.In Becky Sharp’s
Lack of Options

conclusion, then, Vanity Fair can be interpreted as presenting a very positive view of human nature; that even in this mess, human spirit remains st
unflagging, persistent and persevering. We might wonder why we love Becky; surely in part because she encourages us.
References:Dyson, A.E. "Vanity Fair: An Irony Against Heroes." Twentieth Century Interpretations of Vanity Fair. Ed. M.G. Sundell. New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1969. 73-90.Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books,
1959.Lindner, Christoph. “Thackeray’s Gourmand: Carnivals of Consumption in Vanity Fair.” Modern Philology. The University of Chicago
Press, 99:4 (2002): 564-581.Staples, W. E. “The ‘Vanity’ of Ecclesiastes.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies. The University of Chicago Press,
2:2 (1943): 95-104.Sundell, M.G. “Introduction.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Vanity Fair. Ed. M.G. Sundell. New Jersey: Prentice-
Hall, Inc, 1969. 1-12.Sundell, M.G, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Vanity Fair. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1969.Van Ghent,
Dorothy. “On Vanity Fair.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Vanity Fair. Ed. M.G. Sundell. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1969. 27-
39.Wheeler, Michael. English Fiction of the Victorian Period 1830-1890. London: Longman Group Limited, 1985.Young, G.M. Victorian
England: Portrait of an Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Society in Vanity Fair, Thackeray Novels - Brandon Rittenhouse Bottom of
Form

Victorian Age

The Year 1837 was very significant. It was not only the year that Queen Victoria acceded the throne, but also the year that a new literary
age was coined. The Victorian Age, more formally known, was a time ofgreat prosperity in Great Britain's literature. The Victorian Age
produced a variety of changes. Political and social reform produced a variety of reading among all classes. The lower-class became more
self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable. The novels of Charles Dickens, the poems of
Alfred,Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, the dramatic plays of Oscar Wilde, thescientific discoveries of the Darwins, and the religious
revolt of Newmanall helped to enhance learning and literacy in the Victorian society. Ofall of the Literary eras, the Victorian age gave a
new meaning to the word controversy. Writers of that time challenged the ideas of religion, crime,sexuality, chauvinism and over all
social controversies. Queen Victoria influenced the literary age herself. She loved to read and she was educated in the finest schools in
Great Britain. Queen Victoria encouraged reading among all of her people. She gave out free books to children and she built schools for
the lower classes. Also the Queen invited prominent Victorian age writers such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Charles Dickens to read
privately to her in Buckingham Palace.The Victorian Age was also an era of several unsettling social developments. This forced writers to
take positions on immediate issues animating the rest of society. Hence, romantic forms of expression in poetry and prose continued
todominate English literature throughout much of the century. The attention of many writers was directed to the growth of the English
democracy, education, materiallism, religion, science and the theory of evolution.
The Victorian age is generally agreed to stretch through the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It was an exciting period when many
artistic styles, literary schools, as well as, social, political and religious movements thrived. It was a time of prosperity, wide-ranging
imperial expansion, and great political reform. It was also a time, which today we associate with "prudishness" and "oppression". Without a
doubt, it was an extraordinarily complex age, that has sometimes been called the Second English Renaissance. It is also the beginning of
Modern Times. The Victorian age also marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire.
The social classes of England were newly reforming, and fomenting. There was a churning turmoil of the old hierarchical order, and the
middle classes were steadily growing. The upper classes' composition was changing from simply hereditary aristocracy to a combination of
nobility and an emerging wealthy commercial class. Conditions of the working class were still bad, nut during the century, three reform bills
eventually gave the vote to most males over the age of twenty-one. Distinct to that was the horrible reality of child labor which persisted
throughout the period. The Victorian Era was also a time of tremendous scientific progress and ideas. Darwin took his Voyage of the Beagle,
and came up with the Theory of Evolution. The Great Exhibition of 1851 took place in London, landing the technical and industrial advances
of the age, and advances in medicine and the physical sciences continued throughout the century. The radical thought associated with modern
psychiatry began with men like Sigmund Feud toward the end of the era, and radical economic theory, developed by Karl Marx and his
associates, began a second age of revolution in mid-century. The ideas of Marxism, socialism, feminism agitated along with all else that
happened.

Social Classes Of Mid-Victorian England

In the Mid-Victorian period in English history there were distinct class differences in its society. There were three classes in England. These
were the Aristocracy, the Middle-Class (or Factory owners) and the working class. Each class had specific characteristics that defined its
behavior. These characteristics were best seen in four areas of British society. During the time-period known by most historians as the
Industrial Revolution, a great change overtook British culture. Aside from the political and economic change which occurred, a profound
social alteration transpired. The populace seeking to better their lives, sought employment in newly-formed industries. Many of the workers
which included women and children, labored through 12 hour work shifts, with poor nutrition, poor living conditions and completing tedious
tasks1. These factors, accompanied by various ideological precepts by Britain's intellectual community, and those concepts imported from
France, provoke a crucial social evolution. Though no government was overthrown, a distinct transformation took place causing rebellious
behavior to erupt among the working class. This essay will address the questions of how and why this behavior was expressed by the lower
order of British society. It will also discuss methods the ruling class used in suppressing and controlling the rebellious behavior exhibited by
the working class.The middle class held to two basic ideologies that served in the exploitation of the lower order of the British society.
Richard Atlick identified them as Utilitarianism (or Benthamism) and Evangelicalism. Both served the self-interested inclinations of the
middle class. Utilitarianism created the need to fulfill a principle of pleasure while minimalization pain. In the context of the "industrial
revolution" this meant that the pleasure extracted from life would be at the working classes' expense. This provided a perfect justification for
the middle class to capitalize on.

SOCIETY
Thackeray again and again points out that the folly, social climbing, hypocrisy, cruelty, avarice, lovelessness, and selfishness exhibited by
individual characters have their origin and counterpart in society as a whole. These values are learned early, as the anecdote of the three children
happily playing, until told that the sister of one of them had a penny. All three ran to ingratiate themselves with the penny-holder and followed
her, "marching with great dignity," toward a lollipop stall (page 263). To show the connection between the individual's values and behavior and
society's, Thackeray often generalizes from a particular situation or individual's action to the behavior and value of societies. He universalizes
the greedy fawning of the Crawleys over Miss Crawley's £70,000 into a common behavior in society: "What a dignity it gives an old lady, that
balance at the banker's! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative" (page 104).

MARRIAGE

Using this technique of generalizing from the individual, he exposes the mercenary and impersonal basis of marriage in an acquisitive, money-
oriented, status-conscious society.

Becky's desperate attempt to lure Jos into marriage gives Thackeray the opportunity to discuss society's institutionalization of husband hunting,
which "is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas" (page 32). He then lists the approved and
conventional activities by which young ladies find husbands. Amelia's idolatry of George is contrasted with Miss Maria Osborne's feelings for
her fiancé or, to be more accurate, for his financial and social standing, which leads to a discussion of mercenary marriages in fashionable
society (pages 134-5). Maria, the narrator notes, would be as willing to marry the father as the son. Her fiancé, Frederick Bullock, Esq., is
equally mercenary and refuses to marry unless Maria's dowry is increased; he changes his mind only after Mr. Osborne threatens to horsewhip
him, Mr. Osborne removes his money from the Bullock firm, and Frederick's father and the senior partners of Bullock, Hulker, and Bullock
urge him to go through with the marriage. The horrors of marriages arranged for financial and family considerations are revealed by the Steyne
family's alliances (pages 555-60).

CAPITALISM

The dominant class in this novel, as in Thackeray's society, is the middle class, and the middle class is the mercantile, capitalist society. The
predominant middle class value is money, as exemplified by Mr. Osborne. The consequences of this focus are spiritual and intellectual
emptiness, a twisted morality, and corrupted emotions, particularly the inability to love and an incapacity for friendship. When Mr. Sedley
commits the offense of losing his money, Osborne, a long-time friend, bitterly turns against him. The Osborne home, with its display of wealth
and lack of love, is dreary and soulless. Things, material objects dominate this house, and Mr. Osborne uses his children as objects to fulfill his
own needs; George, his favorite child, is to fulfill his social ambitions by marrying wealth. The volatility of the economic system and the
unpredictability of financial markets is illustrated by Mr. Sedley's bankruptcy; he is ruined because Napoleon escaped from Elba. The
pervasiveness of gambling in this novel reflects life in the Regency period; it serves as more than a historically accurate detail–it is another
expression of the economic unpredictability and instability of capitalism.

CREDIT

Those who do not have fortunes but want to live a fashionable life resort to credit. Credit is such an important feature of society that Thackeray
devotes two chapters on "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year" (Chapters XXXVI and XXXVII). While giving close attention to Becky and
Rawdon's sharp practices, these chapters constantly describe other individuals who also live on credit and who typify the middle and upper
classes. Many tradesmen who trustingly extend credit are cheated and sometimes ruined. After Waterloo, the English are greatly respected
throughout Europe for their wealth and trusted as honorable. Becky and Rawdon are "among the first of that brood of hardy English
adventurers who have subsequently invaded the Continent and swindled in all the capitals of Europe" (page 433). This abuse of credit and trust
not only continues to Thackeray's day but extends to other abuses and crimes:
there is now hardly a town of France or Italy in which you shall not see some noble countryman of our own, with that happy swagger and
insolence of demeanour which we carry everywhere, swindling inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques upon credulous bankers, robbing
coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths of their trinkets, easy travellers of their money at cards, even public libraries of their books.
(page 433)
Spending other people's money, which is really what credit is in Vanity Fair, brings no stigma no matter how much misery defaulting causes.
People willingly attend Becky's little parties, even as they gossip about how she pays for them. When a "noble nobleman" fails because of a
debt of 6 or 7 million pounds, the public perceives his ruin as "glorious even, and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin" (page 439).
But his ruin has implications for many others; Thackeray asks,
But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing
up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who pledged all he is worth,
and more to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable
wretches fall under it unnoticed... (page 439)
Thackeray does not present everyone who extends credit and is consequently ruined as a complete victim. Mr. Raggles and the servants in the
Crawley househouse become victims, at least in part, because of their own corrupt values: And I shame to say, she would not have got credit
had they not believed her to be guilty. It was the sight of the Marquis of Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Raggles, burning
in the blackness of midnight, "that kep him up," as he afterward said; that even more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings. (pages 528-9)
Thus, Raggles's ruin--and the non-payment of the servants' salaries--is caused mostly by a belief in Becky's adultery, not by a guileless trust.
Even if Raffles and others like him extend credit willingly or even half-heartedly, is their punishment disproportionate to their extending credit?
Financially ruined, Raffles is jailed, all his assets are seized, and his family becomes homeless.
The moral corruption and callousness resulting from the premium placed on wealth, ostentation, and status have spread throughout society,
from the aristocrat to the servants. Thackeray uses the narrator to speak for society to express society's values: "‘I' is here introduced to
personify the world in general" (page 42). The narrator asserts that society is filled with people who cannot pay their debts; they are so
numerous that, if they were banished, "why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be!" (page 603). Society is
built upon an economy of squandering other people's money for one's own enjoyment and finally ruining oneself and others: "Thus trade
flourishes--civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's vintage of Lafitte
will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared it" (page 603).

PEOPLE AS COMMODITIES

Regarding others as commodities or objects to be used for one's own ends is widespread, almost universal, in this society. Miss Crawley uses
Miss Briggs, Becky, and her relatives to amuse herself and drops them without a pang when they no longer suit her needs. In turn, she and her
fortune are a commodity which her relatives want to secure for themselves. After a stroke incapacitates Sir Pitt and his son takes control of the
estate, Sir Pitt becomes a worthless object and is kept out of sight. Things, possessions are more important than people. Ironically, people's
possessions outlast them or their wealth, as shown by the numerous auctions resulting from bankruptcy or death. Things express what passes
for love in Vanity Fair; Becky receives scores of gifts ranging from flowers to gloves and watches. The narrator dryly comments on the amount
of jewelry which men purchase for women they are pursuing while their wives do without. As a mother Becky, who expresses neither love nor
interest in her son, becomes an object for him. He admires her appearance and her possessions: "She came like a vivified figure out of the
Magasin des Modes–blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered
about her.... She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his father–to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a distance" (449).
There follows a list of things in her room which define her for little Rawdon.

SPENDING MONEY: A FAVORABLE VIEW?

The narrator at times presents spending money in a favorable light. The narrator (or is it Thackeray?) seems pleased that Amelia is not above
enjoying her shopping spree on her honeymoon; he asks, "Would any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a woman who was?" (page
306). Shopping makes her mother happy for the first time since the bankruptcy. Is he being ironic? is this an expression of his view of women?
Buying things seems to be connected to love when the narrator says that he would purchase all Mr. Lee's conservatories for one kiss from
Amelia.

RESPECTABILITY

One of Becky's weaknesses is the desire to be respectable and accepted into "the best" or fashionable society. As a token gesture toward the
rules governing a lady's behavior, she hires, but does not pay, Miss Briggs to be her companion. She achieves her goal of respectability after
she is presented to King George IV at court. This presentation vouches for her social status and, of course, her character, so that some of "the
best" foreigners and "the best English people too" visited her. The emptiness of her achievement soon manifests itself; "Her success excited,
exalted, and then bored her" (page 597). Listening to the best people talk "about each others' houses, and characters, and families–just as the
Joneses do about the Smiths, she wishes she were doing anything else, "oh, how much gayer it would be to wear spangles and trousers and
dance before a booth at a fair" (page 598). "The best society" is no better, is not more interesting, nor is it different from lesser people, except in
social status and wealth. Becky's tendency to Bohemianism or even disreputableness is implied in her reference to being a dancer.

Fashionable society is snobbish and hypocritical in addition to being uninteresting. Its members accept Becky after her presentation,
with no more concern about her character. Lord Steyne, whose immorality is generally known, is courted by fashionable society; the
most respectable, such as the Right Reverend Doctor Trail and the self-righteous Sir Pitt Crawley, flock to his parties. The narrator
comments, "In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man" (page 560). In what sense is Steyne a "great" man?

THE DEMIMONDE

The respectable world and the fashionable world have a shadow or opposing world, that of the demimonde [demimonde: a class of women who
are not respectable because of sexual promiscuity or indiscreet behavior]. It is this class of women that Rawdon pursued as a young buck; Lady
Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White, friends whom Becky cut after her presentation at court and her acceptance into the most respectable
and exclusive society, are demimondaines; it is into this class that Becky is perceived as belonging to before her presentation at court and that
she falls into during her later wanderings in Europe. It is to entertain the demimonde–and their aristocratic and even royal male companions–
that Lord Steyne maintains his private apartment with the gold and silver kitchen utensils. It is in the company of the demimondaine Madame
de Belladonna that he dies in Naples.

Because of the prudishness of much of his audience, Thackeray could not be explicit about the world of these women. He resorted to hints and
indirection. He refers to the demimondaines as "ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and
cut or slighted by all their wives" (page 441). The use of Lord Steyne's discreet, luxurious apartment is hinted at in the useless gold and silver
cooking utensils, the approach by a back door, and the visits of the Prince and Perdita (Perdita means the lost one). Writing at the same time in
a less hypocritical society, Alexander Dumas fils, in The Lady of the Camellias, explicitly details the world of the demimonde in his
tale of the doomed love of the courtesan Marguerite Gautier.
Thackeray, like Dickens, began his literary career as a journalist, writing humorous sketches and satirical pieces. The most Thackeray’s
important novel was “Vanity fair”. Set during the Napoleonic wars, it tells the story of Becky Sharp, who, although she was a poor orphan,
manages to pass for a lady of high society. The novel is critical of the shallowness of the Victorian world, which is based on money and The most
important European world power to maintain the Liberal system in the Restoration age was England, but at the end of the Napoleonic wars it
had a regressive phase. The re-opening of the markets, after the Napoleon’s “Continental Blockade”, coincided with a dramatic fall in
agricultural prices and, consequently, in the economic power for some small rural owners. No more prosperous was, at first, the industrial
situation, in which the traditional textile leading sector was subjected to increasing competition of the French and Belgian industry. The British
Conservative government, after 1815, faced the crisis encouraging the landed property with high protective tariffs on imports of wheat. The
manoeuvre of the Government, however, had the effects of national food prices increases.
Until 1820, the Government reacted to the economic and social crisis with harsh repression, defeating the Luddite movement (which destroyed
the machines, believing they were responsible for low wages and unemployment) with tough laws that allowed courts to inflict mass convictions,
or sending army troops, with the danger of serious accidents, such as in Manchester, where in August 1819, a great battle between troops and
demonstrators caused eleven deaths and hundreds injured. The fact upset the public opinion, and the name of the place, St. Peter's Field, went
down in history as “the Peterloo massacre.” The Authoritarianism then got on the wane around 1830, when the economic crisis of the first post-
Napoleonic depression was exceeded. In fact, in 1837 Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England with a long period of prosperity. A
satirical picture of English society of the early nineteenth century had been presented in 1848 by William Thackeray in his famous novel “Vanity
Fair.” William Thackeray (1811-1863) was born in Calcutta, where his father held office in the Civil Service of the East India Company.
Orphaned at the age of five, he was sent to London and then to Cambridge. William left the University without a degree, and went to Weimar and
Paris to study art. He never became a great artist, but his studies in Germany and France prepared him for his future literary life. In 1832 he
inherited a fortune which might have enabled him to live on his income; but in a year or two it was all gone. When it became necessary for him to
work for a living, and subsequently he turned to literature. His first novel, “Vanity Fair”, was published in 1847-1848.
The history goes into this novel through three ways. The first one is a “direct” intrusion of the military-historical events in Amelia’s life: right
after her marriage with Osborne, he must leave to the war. Napoleon was spreading in Europe and England, struck in its vital economic
interests, entered into a bloody and long conflict with France. In the historical part of the novel, the plot is played around the date of the battle of
Waterloo, and the author describes the effects on the civilian population of the nearby Brussels, and in particular on the moods of the
protagonists, who live this historical moment with an extreme distress. “[…] The chapters in which the drama of Waterloo is presented are
dominated by great events, but (…) Thackeray (…) has no desire to show how they affect history; that is the foolish method of the historical
novelists; he prefers to show how history affects them […].” The second way through which the history enters the novel is “indirect”, namely the
economic difficulties faced by England in the post-war time, when Becky, who meanwhile had a son by Rawdon, by whom she was abandoned,
shall bear the economic difficulties, demonstrating a strong-willed personality, which certainly was going to clash with some stereotypes of
women circulating in Victorian England.
And this is the “third way” through which the social history of England enters in the rightly famous Thackeray’s novel . Through Becky,
Thackeray tells us the story of a woman who loves luxury and worldly formalities, the “appearances” that were so well cultivated by the
Victorian society. In addition, Thackeray stresses in Becky a vivacity and an “activism”, which, as we said, contrasted fiercely with the notion
that women's the Victorian society had. These thus are the critical points of a novel that still today is felt as extremely modern. Thackeray has a
very large “liking” for Becky, and, over all, he seems “fascinated” by her, who is always “ the central figure of the book”, and “ […] drawn
with a firmed hand and brighter colours (…) When she is off the stage the action languishes; the squalor of Queen’s Crawley, the grimness of
Gaunt House, hold our attention merely as they affect the true heroine of the book. When first she appears, flinging the ‘dixonary’ out of the
window, the true note of her character is struck, and never once does it ring false. ‘She was small and slight in person,’ thus she is described;
‘pale, dandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up, they were very large, odd, and attractive’ […].”
The novel
The novel is set between 1814 and 1840 and in it two stories intertwine, one of Amelia Sedley and that of Rebecca Sharp. The two girls were
educated in the same college, but they are very different from one another. Amelia is the daughter of a rich merchant and was fiancée to George
Osborne, Captain of the His Majesty's XXX army regiment.. She is of a peaceful character and the perfect Victorian woman, who occupies her
days embroidering and playing the piano. Becky, on the contrary, is a poor woman, but a very social climber, and wants to achieve an adequate
social position. Becky Sharp (Rebecca) is hired as governess in the noble family of a rich old man, and she succeeds, with various deceptions,
gets married to one of his sons, a career officer, named Rawdon. Despite all her efforts, Becky fails to make the rich Miss Crawley, the aunt of
her husband, leaves her fortune to Rawdon. However, despite the ongoing financial hardship, the intelligence and beauty of Rebecca manage to
make the family continues to live in luxury and high society, until one day Rebecca is surprised by the husband with Lord Steyne and therefore
abandoned.
Meanwhile, Amelia succeeds, despite the financial ruin of the father and the opposition of the future father-in-law, to marry George Osborne,
who is unfaithful to his wife, until he dies in a battle during the Napoleonic wars. Amelia remains faithful to the memory of her husband,
consoled, somehow, by the birth of the son George. Her husband’s best friend, William Dobbin, loved her, but accepted the psychological
situation of Amelia and respected her will to stay on her own. Meanwhile, Becky convinces Amelia that her husband does not deserves her
continuing regret. Becky shows a ticket of Osborne, in which he asked her to escape with him. Amelia finally married William, and Thackeray, at
the end of the novel, describes her as happy with her husband.
“Vanity Fair” is an extraordinary and satirical framework of Victorian England, and the novel represents the faults of a society that rewards
only the hypocrisy. Thackeray is certainly a writer who flogs inexorably the behaviours of his contemporary society, the hypocrisies and
cowardice of the aristocracy, but he chastens the high society with a very mild tone. He gives his readers the impression that the vices of his
society are only “abnormality” and “deviations”, and he indicates, albeit implicitly, as the society “should be”. In this sense, into Thackeray,
there’s never a “treacherous” moral satisfaction for the moral distortions of his times, showing the possibility of a future moral improvement of
it. From this point of view, we can speak about Thackeray as a “kind” writer; and a very gentleman.