Thoughts on Vanity Fair

[kiki1982]

A third thread to fill this forum up a little. It's a shame that no-one actually posts on here, because you could have so many nice discussions.

First, I enjoyed it, although I was pretty slow in finishing it. Thackeray obviously observed quite a lot, because his portrayal of the Belgians and the Germans is very accurate. They still have the same traits. I loved the episode where they all went to Brussels for Waterloo and where Jos had found a Belgian servant called Isidoor, who 'didn't speak any language' (we should conclude he spoke Flemish, then, shouldn't we), but made himself indispensible because he bustled about doing everything and nothing. :lol: That's Belgians for you! And the great food and beer. Indeed, you cannot go to Belgium and not have good food. It's unheard of. In fact, for a Belgian, a holiday is always valued by the food. The first thing people answer when asked 'How was your holiday?' is 'Well, the food was good.'

I liked the description of Pumpernickel too. So true to today's Germany. Germans can be so local and so private (we have found out to our utter frustration).

I think the set-up was a quite satirical Les Misérables style of book. It's fragmentary and it jumps form character to character, from life to life, as the author sees fit and all characters somehow have their influence on each other, although they may not realise it. They also all come together in Waterloo which will determine how the whole thing carries on. Thus, the novel has no real clear protagonist as more or less all characters are pretty well sketched, including Miss Briggs and the landlord of Curzon Street.
I found the cosmopolitanness of it quite refreshing. As Thackeray says, English people establish a little England wherever they go, and so they do in books too: everything is always very English and focussed on English issues, even if it plays somewhere else, but this one was maybe focussed on English issues like reputation and things, but it was slightly more open.
There was a theme of travel, emphasised in Dobbin's docking scene where he finally arrives in the harbour of Ostend to carry Amelia off (frustrating character, Dobbin, but so sweet). He's paced up and down the Boompjes in Rotterdam, a quay lined with lime trees (the trees of lovers) and willows (treacherous trees who can put travellers off their track), then considers marrying Glorvina O'Dowd anyway (her pink satin and singing at him did their work in the end!), but then is summoned back to the right track by Amelia. Indeed, all through the novel there is a lot of travel Notably, Becky can't stay where she is. Whether that's because the people force her out or because she just hasn't found her purpose, is the question. Had Jos asked to marry her at Vauxhal, maybe she would have stayed where she was and he too...

On the whole very nice novel.

Any thoughts anyone?

[mona amon]

Good review, Kiki!

I liked Vanity Fair very much, but don't remember it enough to discuss. Read it twice actually... :blush:

[kev67]

I have not read it yet, but I will get around to it. I need to find out what this Becky Sharp is like. It is quite a chunky book though.

[kiki1982]

Becky Sharp is interesting, but so are all the major characters.

I won't let slip too much (otherwise I'll put a big fat spoiler mark :D), but the major characters have their good sides and their bad sides. The peripheral characters are a bit one-sided: they're either villainous or good and sketched accordingly (I would have Miss Crawley down for a manipulative *****, really, who terrorises everyone because she's got £30,000 and she enjoys it too; the dowager Sheepshanks is just a pious evangelical dragon), but the major characters are realer and have their immensely good sides and their frustrating bad sides.

Particularly Becky is understandable in her motives behind everything she does, but sometimes she just goes too far SLIGHT SPOILER (I think she may be accused of murder in the end) SLIGHT SPOILER OVER, but she does have some grain of good in her, only she's never really given the chance, maybe because she spoils the very start of everything by acting by a certain motive. She doesn't understand that some people may just act out of feeling. That's maybe because of her youth. As she does later, she gambles, but she bets on the wrong colour, so to say. Maybe in the scenes in Pumpernickel where people play the betting game rouge et noir, that refers to Stendhal's novel Le Rouge et le Noir, a Bildungsroman about social climbing during the Bourbon period in France.

Dobbin is sweet, but he's frustrating because he pines after Amelia, but somehow waits for her to signal to him, 'I'm available.' Had he spoken sooner, maybe things would have sped up. Still, he is too nice and good a man to reproach for that, but he's a bit of a wet flannel sometimes, although in the army he seems to have done well. Somehow you can see why old Osborne said about him that he thought Dobbin 'wouldn't say bo to a goose.' Indeed, you can't really see him kill a fly either. The scene where he plays in the park with Georgy is great though. Just the thought of him, a ripe man of in his late thirties, in an Indian jacket, bending over at Georgy's will to jump over him just makes me laugh. :) At some point Thackeray writes that if Amelia would have told him to jump into the water, he would have done so, merely to please her.

Thackeray also makes a point of emphasising how education can shape a person(ality). Young George Osborne's arrogance and imperiousness was never checked and it turned him into (by the end) a nasty man whose end you could almost be glad for. Georgy gets some bad influence of his grandfather, but the time he spent in his early youth with his loving mother and grandparents has rubbed off well. His grandfather's bad influence disappears quickly too, and he is left to live in a household with more modest means with his uncle Jos and his mother, and modest Major Dobbin, who has got some means, but who doesn't throw his cash around. Georgy is more generous than his father and grandfather and will make far better use of the money he eventually inherits. Not least down to the knowledgeable and modest influence of Dobbin who deftly leads him away from the gambling table and scolds his attendant for allowing him in the playroom in the first place. Dobbin is a very dutiful modest and knowledgeable man, but his fault is that, like a good soldier, he would forget his own needs because he considers it his duty to do so. That's also what he does somewhere in the beginning (but that's a spoiler).

Amelia and her brother Jos both have a slightly selfish streak. Not materialistic, but in terms of feeling. Maybe Amelia does it, though, because she thinks everyone expects from her what she does, but Jos does have a disturbing procrastinating and lazy attitude, although I'm sure we all know such people (I'm one). It's bitter sometimes how Jos treats his sister, certainly by the end. On the other hand, he's incredibly fat and insecure and he probably needs a lot of courage (and time consequently) to do something, so that pleads in his favour. The Sedley parents were also like that: after his SPOILER demise SPOILER OVER, father Sedley continues his little projects to the detriment of the household's finances, while Amelia has to sacrifice the money for her and her son (given to her by a generous benfactor), even his new clothes for Christmas, eventually having to give him up altogether, and she gets scolded for not caring for anyone. Although she cares well for them both in their old age, she's vastly under-appreciated by them both, although old Sedley clears that up later. Only Dobbin (again ;)) seems to realise what a treasure she really is (maybe because he is one himself too, treasures recognise each other). But all the Sedleys have vast amounts of feelings, which make them better than the Osbornes to some extent, but make them vulnerable for life's setbacks.

Very well-rounded characters.

[kev67]

I have started reading this now. The heroine is a different sort to last one I read, Mrs Huntingdon of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I doubt Anne Bronte would have approved of Becky Sharp, not that she has committed any great sins, yet. I wonder if it takes a male author to write about a heroine like Becky Sharp. She is not entirely admirable, but she is likeable. She is not a PITA like Mrs Huntingdon. Vanity Fair reads like a comedy or a satire. The narrator is a bit unusual. He is not just omniscient, he actually talks about how the story might have been about these characters or those, but actually it's going to be about these. I wonder if it harks back to C18th books like Tom Jones. I do not know because I have not read them. It is a very long book. It looks thicker than Middlemarch. So far I am enjoying it.

[Carmilla]

The same as below. Don't know how it got posted twice.

[Carmilla]

I read Vanity Fair some years ago and I remember I truly liked Amelia. The plot was great and the end matched up to it. I enjoyed it very much and probably will re-read it. :)

[Jackson Richardson]

I remember Miss Crawley and her nephew at Brighton !

I'm afraid I'm resistant to Amelia. She is far too like the sentimental, too good to be true, suffering and characterless heroines of Dickens. But she is viewed critically and she needs Becky to put her straight. Thackeray is better at women than Dickens, generally. Becky and Miss Crawley in Dickens would both be grotesque baddies. Thackeray shows them a wry sympathy.

[kev67]

W.M. Thackery addresses Miss Sedley's sweetness at the start of chapter 12.

"We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable people practising the rural virtues there, and travel back to London, to enquire what has become of Miss Ameila. 'We don't care a fig about her,' writes some unknown correspondent with a pretty little handwriting and a pink seal to her note. 'She is fade and insipid,' and adds some more kind remarks of this strain, which I should never have repeated at all, but they are in truth prodigiously complimentary to the young lady whom they concern."

I am still concerned for her. I hope she will not be hurt too much by that cad, George Osbourne.

[kev67]

I am a little surprised that Becky marries just a quarter of the way throught the book. It does not look like a miserable marriage neither. In British C19th books, couples either marry the wrong person in the first third of the book and then regret it (very much), or they marry at the end, after all the obstacles have been surmounted (or have conveniently died). Still, there are plenty of pages for things to go wrong. Becky has misplayed her hand. I have her husband marked for an early death and I don't think she will inherit much money. I could be wrong, but the Battle of Waterloo is looming.

[Jackson Richardson]

I've been surprised by Becky marrying so early in the book - having been presented as a cunning gold digger, why should she marry someone with no prospects. I suspect the reason is that she finds him sexually attractive but being a gold digger is not prepared to compromise her social position by risking sex without marriage.

Let us know how you get on, kev.

[prendrelemick]

Just to lower tone a bit. Alan Clarke (the politician) - when asked to choose his favorite literary heroine said, "Becky Sharpe! She's a proper little minx, I'd like to give her a jolly good rogering." (it was the 1970's) I've always remembered it.

[kev67]

There are two black characters in Vanity Fair. One was a footman called Sambo, and the other was a rich heiress called Miss Swartz, who Miss Sedley knew from school. I wondered about the name Sambo. It would be racist now, but was it then? Miss Swartz was described as a mulatto. I think she had a German Jewish father. Presumably her fortune was built on slavery. John Osbourne does not seem to care about her mixed heritage and is very keen his son marries her. However, the son, George Osbourne, is rather racist about her. He calls her a Hottentot.

The other thing I have been wondering about is Mr Sedley's bankruptcy. He had to sell most of his goods, dismiss most his household staff, and move to a much smaller house. Yet he is not as destitute as many people in London at that time. Does he still have a small income from somewhere? His son earns a lot of money as a collector for the East India Company, but Jos Sedley is quite a selfish man. What were the rules of bankruptcy? Were bankrupts allowed to keep a small proportion of their income? I imagine creditors would be very keen to get their money back, but would not want to drive bankrupts to destitution, because it might happen to them.

[kev67]

I was reading ch 25 or 26 last night, while Jos Sedley, George Osbourne, Amelia Osbourne, Rawdon Crawley, Rebecca Crawley and Captain Dobbin are all in Brighton, that I really did not like many of them. Jos is ridiculous, George is a wastrel, Amelia is simpering, Rawdon is a parasite, and Rebecca is false. Even Captain Dobbin is starting to irritate me.

The narrative voice is unusual. The narrator said that Amelia would later come to know Captain Dobbin better. Oh that's good. I was worried he would get killed at Waterloo.

[kev67]

I wondered how the Battle of Waterloo was going to be portrayed. The way the book was written up to that point, it could not just turn into some war story. I thought it was handled quite skilfully, concentrating on Jos and the wives left in Brussels, while wild reports filtered back from the front.

[Jackson Richardson]

The final sentence of that chapter was very famous as an example of Thackeray's style. I won't quote it as that would be a terrible spoiler

[kev67]

Just to lower tone a bit. Alan Clarke (the politician) - when asked to choose his favorite literary heroine said, "Becky Sharpe! She's a proper little minx, I'd like to give her a jolly good rogering." (it was the 1970's) I've always remembered it.

He might, but I think I would have left her alone, and not just because I would be frightened of her husband.

W.M. Thackery was a friend of Charlotte Bronte. Although I am not very keen on Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte did actually show Mr Rochester being charming and witty. She wrote pages of Mr Rochester charming Jane. I do not think Thackery does as good a job with Becky Sharp. He describes her flashing, green eyes and great wit and intelligence, but we don't actually hear her being very charming and witty for any length of time.

Having read quite a few C19th novels and several non-fiction books on social issues written at the time, I am taken aback by the amount of money George Osbourne and the Rawdon Crawleys were spending. Rawdon had debts of £15,000. This is a colossal amount of money, about £1.5 million in today's money. George Osbourne was no better. He lost over £100 playing for high stakes when he only had £2000 of his mother's inheritance. At 5% interest, that £2000 would amount to £100 a year in addition to his army pay. This is far less than he is used to, but still way more than at least 95% of the population would receive.

[Jackson Richardson]

I think the point Alan Clark was making was not that Becky was charming and witty but she was potentially good in bed (although she is undoubtedly intelligent.)

She can clearly put the charm on (to Amelia as well as Sir Pitt, Rawdon and Lord Steyne) but perhaps we are not meant to be seduced.

[kev67]

This book is rather a saga. People are born, people die, people marry, grow old, suffer reversals of fortune, repent of their actions or otherwise. It is not really a book you can rush. I do not know if it was originally serialized in a magazine like Dickens' books were, but I can imagine it was. I can imagine people reading this over a year or two, perhaps reading several other serials alongside.

[Jackson Richardson]

It was indeed a serial. On the other hand I took it on holiday a few years ago and finished it in under a week.

I tried reading Thackeray's The Newcomes on the basis of an episode each month - modern editions tend to mark the episode breaks. The trouble with that is that by the time you've got near the end, you've forgotten what happened earlier.

[kev67]

At a chapter a day, it is taking me over two months.

Amelia has started to remind me of Tess Durbeyfield of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. She was another love machine who was forced into agonising decisions by the ****-wittedness of her stupid parents.

I am at about chapter 49, and I am having difficulty telling apart Lord Steyn and Lord Gaunt, the Lady Steyne and the Marchioness. Are they the same people or different? Previousy I had difficulty working out Sir Pitt Crawley from his son in particular, and Bute Crawley, his brother; and Mrs Crawley from Mrs Bute Crawley, and there must have been a Lady Crawley. It is difficult when one person has more than one title and several people have similar names.

[kev67]

Possible spoliers:

I have noticed something about Thackery. He sets up some very suspenseful situation, but gives away what happens before it actually happens. For example, in one chapter a duel is about to take place; at the start of the next chapter we learn that one of the duellists will remain alive to make visits on another very minor character. So what happened? Another example, before the Battle of Waterloo, we are informed that a particular soldier will survive. Quite a number of chapters before this we are informed that another of the soldiers will be around for another ten or twenty years in the plot. So that only leaves one soldier who might not make it. It's odd. It sort of sets you up and then deflates you.

[kev67]

I wondered about Major Dobbin's years of service in India. In Jane Eyre, Diane Rivers seems to think Jane going to India would be a death sentence to her. Major Dobbin does suffer from a serious fever at one point. It reminded me that Florence Nightingale had campaigned for health improvements for the British army in India. According to the Indian Sanitary Commission, the annual death rate of British soldiers in India was 69 in every 1000, three times that at home. Out of that 69, nine died of natural causes and the other 60 from poor sanitation. Apart from the bad sanitation, the British soldiery suffered from lack of exercise and liver disease. According to Nightingale, a soldier's routine day was

bed till day break
drill for an hour
breakfast served to him by native servants
bed
dinner served to him by native servants
bed
tea served him by native servants
drink
bed - an da capo

I am sure Major Dobbin spent his days far more constructively.

One thing I am unclear about is that I thought at that time India was governed by the East India Company, not directly by Britain. Jos Sedley works as a tax collector for the East India Company. I thought the East India Company had their own army, which the regular army looked down on slightly. Major Dobbin's was not one of the crack regiments, but I did not think it was one of the East India Company's regiment.

[Ecurb]

I just read "Vanity Fair" for the first time (although I haven't read all of this thread). I read it because it is probably the most famous English novel I hadn't read. Its fame is well deserved.

Since I read it quickly, perhaps some LitNet members can offer opinions on some of the issues the book raised for me.

Rebecca Crawley seems to epitomize the notion that characters live up to (or down to) the expectations of others. At school, Amelia is deemed kind and loving. Becky is deemed dangerous by Miss Pinkerton. Her mother, after all, was a (horrors!) French dancer. Perhaps, given the notions about inherited (and even national) personality traits prevailing in Victorian England, Thackeray would give these factors precedence. But the notion of conforming to expectations seems to be consistent with Becky's long descent into self-serving depravity. Jos, at the end, is terrified of her, with good reason, but, I wondered, if he (and others) had thought better of Becky, perhaps she would have been better.

What saves Becky's husband Rawdon from the same descent? Rawdon is a rake, a gamer, and unscrupulous about money. In these respects, he resembles Becky, and his social talents are less admirable than hers. Yet he remains (for me, at least) a likeable figure. Perhaps Rawdon is never tried as Becky is. Becky herself claims she could be a good person if she had 5k a year. But I don't believe her.

Perhaps, by Victorian standards, Rawdon is saved by being a "gentleman". He has no objection to cheating tradesmen, but would hardly renege on a debt of honor (he rarely loses). By virtue of his gentility and his male gender, Rawdon, like Tom Jones or Joseph Andrews, is granted latitude that Becky is not.

In War and Peace, the other classic of the Napoleonic wars, the lives of individuals drive the engine of history. In Vanity Fair, the engine of history toys with the lives of individuals. The great victory at Waterloo is not victory for the Sedleys -- Amelia loses a husband and Mr. S. a fortune.

Rebecca seems to be compared to Napoleon. Indeed, one of Thackeray's illustrations shows her in Napoleonic garb and pose. She's half French. Both are ruthlessly ambitious.

One jarring note: Becky's lack of affection for her son seems incredible. Someone as fond of love and adulation as Becky is would, I think, snap at such easy bait. Maybe all of Becky's social skills are phony, avaricious, and hypocritical. But I don't think she would be so talented at the social whirl is she didn't like it, and crave admiration (as well as money). The contrast between Becky and Rawdon as parents is, of course, the main reason Rawdon seems so much more sympathetic.

[kev67]

I just read "Vanity Fair" for the first time (although I haven't read all of this thread). I read it because it is probably the most famous English novel I hadn't read. Its fame is well deserved.

Since I read it quickly, perhaps some LitNet members can offer opinions on some of the issues the book raised for me.

Rebecca Crawley seems to epitomize the notion that characters live up to (or down to) the expectations of others. At school, Amelia is deemed kind and loving. Becky is deemed dangerous by Miss Pinkerton. Her mother, after all, was a (horrors!) French dancer. Perhaps, given the notions about inherited (and even national) personality traits prevailing in Victorian England, Thackeray would give these factors precedence. But the notion of conforming to expectations seems to be consistent with Becky's long descent into self-serving depravity. Jos, at the end, is terrified of her, with good reason, but, I wondered, if he (and others) had thought better of Becky, perhaps she would have been better.

What saves Becky's husband Rawdon from the same descent? Rawdon is a rake, a gamer, and unscrupulous about money. In these respects, he resembles Becky, and his social talents are less admirable than hers. Yet he remains (for me, at least) a likeable figure. Perhaps Rawdon is never tried as Becky is. Becky herself claims she could be a good person if she had 5k a year. But I don't believe her.

Perhaps, by Victorian standards, Rawdon is saved by being a "gentleman". He has no objection to cheating tradesmen, but would hardly renege on a debt of honor (he rarely loses). By virtue of his gentility and his male gender, Rawdon, like Tom Jones or Joseph Andrews, is granted latitude that Becky is not.

In War and Peace, the other classic of the Napoleonic wars, the lives of individuals drive the engine of history. In Vanity Fair, the engine of history toys with the lives of individuals. The great victory at Waterloo is not victory for the Sedleys -- Amelia loses a husband and Mr. S. a fortune.

Rebecca seems to be compared to Napoleon. Indeed, one of Thackeray's illustrations shows her in Napoleonic garb and pose. She's half French. Both are ruthlessly ambitious.

One jarring note: Becky's lack of affection for her son seems incredible. Someone as fond of love and adulation as Becky is would, I think, snap at such easy bait. Maybe all of Becky's social skills are phony, avaricious, and hypocritical. But I don't think she would be so talented at the social whirl is she didn't like it, and crave admiration (as well as money). The contrast between Becky and Rawdon as parents is, of course, the main reason Rawdon seems so much more sympathetic.

I got the impression that Rawdon Crawley started to change after his son was born. His love for his son turned him into a better person. Maybe he does not want his son to grow up to be a cad like he was. Maybe he does not want him to have anything to be ashamed about when he grows up. Becky does not feel the same and she is not going to change.

Mme Bovary, in the last book I read, does not show much love for her daughter Berthe. She is not as mean to her child as Becky is, but is thoughtless regarding her. Maybe being an unloving mother is a C19th anti-heroine trope.

[Jackson Richardson]

I can imagine that if Becky wants to be seen as sexually attractive, she wouldn't want to be seen as a mother.

I think Thackeray would consider Rawdon (and his father and brother in different ways) all fail in what a gentleman should be. (Colonel Newcombe is his ideal of a gentleman.)

I think he gets our sympathy because eventually Becky's dupe.

There's the interesting point about whether Becky is technically unfaithful to Rawdon with Lord Steyne. She says she isn't and (as I remember) Rawdon goes along with that for a time as it's in his interest. Nowadays, the immediate thought is that she is lying (which would be in character) and Thackeray only lets his readers think she isn't because Victorians could not cope with a adulterous wife who wasn't tragic. (Contrast Becky to Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary.)

But it is quite likely that she is telling the truth: she is stringing Lord Steyne along and playing hard to get - which nowadays is probably even less admirable.

I admit I've forgotten the situation that leads Rawdon to turn.

What did you think of Amelia, ecurb?

[Ecurb]

Yes, Jackson, Scarlett O'Hara didn't want more children because pregnancy might make her less attractive. Still, Becky is kind to people from whom she gains nothing (at times). Surely her disdain for Rawdon Jr. makes her less attractive to men, just as it does to readers.

I suppose the trope Kev mentions might involve the rejection of "family values" (as they might now be called in the U.S.).

IN addition, Becky is clearly "unfaithful" to Rawdon, whether she has adulterous sex or not. One of my pet peeves is the notion that infidelity can suggest ONLY adultery. Becky leaves Rawdon in jail, dangles after other men, lies about money, and is an unfaithful wife repeatedly regardless of whether she has sex with other men. I'll grant, though, that I know what "technically unfaithful" means, even though I deplore that the meaning has become so clear. So I'm not criticizing Jackson, just the notion that "infidelity" can mean only adultery. Sins of the spirit are more venal than those of the flesh.

[Ecurb]

I thought Amelia was sweet, but sort of a dumb sap. She loves George Jr., but can't take care of him. I think she's contrasted as the opposite evil to Becky, in some ways. The major characters are, I think, meant to be compared and contrasted. Rawdon lives by his wits, just like Becky does. But somehow he is saved. Dobbin is a bit of a dumb sap, just like Amelia. George? Would he become another Becky (whom he wants to run off with)? Or, had he lived, would Amelia's love have saved him?

Amelia shares this with Becky: she is not genteel. She is the daughter of a tradesman. George, Rawdon, and Dobbin are all "officers and gentlemen" (although George's father is not a gentleman). So although George and Rawdon are unscrupulous schemers, they have a sense of honor that Becky lacks.

Also, I don't quite buy that Becky saved her note from George for 12 years. Given the number of beaus she has on her string, she must have quite a library of secret notes, if she saves them all!

[Pompey Bum]

There's the interesting point about whether Becky is technically unfaithful to Rawdon with Lord Steyne. She says she isn't and (as I remember) Rawdon goes along with that for a time as it's in his interest. Nowadays, the immediate thought is that she is lying (which would be in character) and Thackeray only lets his readers think she isn't because Victorians could not cope with a adulterous wife who wasn't tragic. (Contrast Becky to Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary.)

But it is quite likely that she is telling the truth: she is stringing Lord Steyne along and playing hard to get - which nowadays is probably even less admirable.


Yes, the question of Becky's fidelity is interesting. Of course she hasn't done anything Thackeray doesn't mention because she is only made of ink and paper, and of course Thackeray isn't in a position to tell us about her now, so it becomes a question of what we think she would have done. About that I have no doubt: Becky Sharp would have done whatever suited her. She probably would have enjoyed toying with Lord Steyne more than anything else, but if she was in the mood for anything else, I don't imagine she would have hesitated. Thackeray warns us near the beginning that it is pointless to get too precise about Becky's chastity (which may or may not have survived Chiswick Mall):

"For Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca—(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter?"


One jarring note: Becky's lack of affection for her son seems incredible. Someone as fond of love and adulation as Becky is would, I think, snap at such easy bait.

I would say it seems unnatural rather than incredible. But Becky was surely unnatural to Victorian readers, and Thackeray warns us from the start that she hates children. In fact, at one point she makes an uncharacteristicly kind comment about them, and even Amelia gets a little suspicious.

I don't see Becky as being so much "fond of love and adulation"--especially the innocent love of a child--as simply looking for revenge for how she thinks the world has treated her; and she does not care whether the innocent suffer with the guilty if she can get that. Again, this is a pattern from the start, when she throws the "dixonary" back at the awful Miss Jemima's annoying-but-earnest sister. For Becky, it's about beating the world at its own game. Collateral damage doesn't matter.

[Ecurb]

I would say it seems unnatural rather than incredible. But Becky was surely unnatural to Victorian readers, and Thackeray warns us from the start that she hates children. In fact, at one point she makes an uncharacteristicly kind comment about them, and even Amelia gets a little suspicious.

I don't see Becky as being so much "fond of love and adulation"--especially the innocent love of a child--as simply looking for revenge for how she thinks the world has treated her; and she does not care whether the innocent suffer with the guilty if she can get that. Again, this is a pattern from the start, when she throws the "dixionary" back at the awful Miss Jemima's annoying-but-earnest sister. For Becky, it's about beating the world at its own game. Collateral damage doesn't matter.

I agree, but Becky would be unlikely to be successful in her drive for vengeance and self-improvement if she didn't have a natural social talent. In addition, Becky's singing and her acting in charades suggests a desire for admiration which goes beyond vengeance and social climbing (Rawdon, for example, objects to her acting, and her talent may suggest to some of the ton an inheritance from her mother, which would counter her social ambitions).

It seems to me Thackeray is suggesting that Becky's bitterness and ambition lead her at first into minor transgressions, and her successes and rationalizations of these minor transgressions tempt her to adultery and murder. She justifies her small sins, which, eventually, allows her to move on to venal ones. I don't know enough about Napoleon's early life and career to know if this model might be applied to him.

[Pompey Bum]

It seems to me Thackeray is suggesting that Becky's bitterness and ambition lead her at first into minor transgressions, and her successes and rationalizations of these minor transgressions tempt her to adultery and murder. She justifies her small sins, which, eventually, allows her to move on to venal ones. I don't know enough about Napoleon's early life and career to know if this model might be applied to him.

I'm not a Catholic, but don't you mean mortal sins? Her bitterness leads her to venal sins and her successes lead her to mortal ones? If so, I agree.

As far as Napoleon goes, Thackeray would have seem him as a dangerous radical who didn't mind burning Europe for his own ambition. I don't think the metaphor goes beyond that. (The young Napoleon was an anti-French Corsican separatist, by the way).

[Ecurb]

Yes. "Venal" was the wrong word.

[Pompey Bum]

WARNING: SPOILERS

I just finished rereading Vanity Fair after a period of many years, and I found it even better than I remembered. Thackeray's wit is extremely sharp and I had thought of him as being a little mean-spirited at times. I think now that nothing could be further from the truth. I found his voice wise, a little bemused, but ultimately rather sad about the society he described. (His satire was devastating, though, and laugh-out-loud funny. We had a long stagecoach ride together (to borrow Fielding's famous metaphor) and I was genuinely sorry to say goodbye.

I remembered Becky's marital fidelity and sexual morality discussed on this thread and had some new ideas about them. First of all, yes, most modern readers would say that Becky was having adulterous sex with Lord Steyne, that she was a prostitute in Germany, and even (I think) that she was Jos' mistress near the novel's end; and that Thackeray was not able to be more explicit given his times. But of course we have only what he wrote, and he knew Becky better than we do.

Ecurb made the interesting observation that Becky was adulterous whether she was having sex with Lord Steyne or not, since adultery is more than just the mechanics of intercourse. I decided that Thackeray would have agreed, although not entirely as ecurb had intended. Becky was cuckolding Rawdon if only because she was perceived to be doing so by others. She was dating and receiving Lord Steyneand using Rawdon as a convenient fool (at her apex he is described as a big-booted side show barker announcing her next performance); and all the tongues in Vanity Fair were wagging about it. And that's because in Vanity Fair, it's not what you do or don't do that matters, but what you can get away with; and that's because Vanity Fair is all about power.

Once Becky loses access to Lord Steyne's Power--when she falls foul of it, in fact--she is a whore whether she lives in a Bohemian garret in Germany or not. Did she really wind up Jos mistress? Maybe. Or maybe she just followed him around to bully and use him--the facts didn't really matter n Vanity Fair. Even the shocking possibility that Becky may have murdered Jos is quickly glossed over. Who knows what really happened?

Given all the things that a left ambiguous (and Vanity Fair's need to leave them ambiguous), I was surprised by the flashback in which George, just before his death at Waterloo, confesses to Dobbin that he is having an "intrigue" with a woman, and that he would prefer for Amelia not to know. But Amelia (and Dobbin, too) already knew where things stood between George and Becky. George humiliated Amelia over her publicly; Aemelia took Becky to task for it during the battle; and the women broke their friendship for many years over it. I think a careful reader has to conclude that there was something sexual going on, and that the flashback confession (much later in a lengthy book) was Thackeray's way of being as discreet as possible about it.

The book's resolution, of course, depends on Amelia's eventual disillusionment with George. Oddly this comes with the disclosure by Becky of a note in which George had proposed that they run away together. This is a strange detail given George's wish that Amelia not find out about the intrigue (perhaps he meant not until he could arrange things), but it seems to have been important for Thackeray to let the reader know that where Becky and George was concerned there was no ambiguity.

[spikepipsqueak]

WARNING: SPOILERS

I just finished rereading Vanity Fair after a period of many years, and I found it even better than I remembered. Thackeray's wit is extremely sharp and I had thought of him as being a little mean-spirited at times. I think now that nothing could be further from the truth. I found his voice wise, a little bemused, but ultimately rather sad about the society he described. (His satire was devastating, though, and laugh-out-loud funny. We had a long stagecoach ride together (to borrow Fielding's famous metaphor) and I was genuinely sorry to say goodbye.

I remembered Becky's marital fidelity and sexual morality discussed on this thread and had some new ideas about them. First of all, yes, most modern readers would say that Becky was having adulterous sex with Lord Steyne, that she was a prostitute in Germany, and even (I think) that she was Jos' mistress near the novel's end; and that Thackeray was not able to be more explicit given his times. But of course we have only what he wrote, and he knew Becky better than we do.

Ecurb made the interesting observation that Becky was adulterous whether she was having sex with Lord Steyne or not, since adultery is more than just the mechanics of intercourse. I decided that Thackeray would have agreed, although not entirely as ecurb had intended. Becky was cuckolding Rawdon if only because she was perceived to be doing so by others. She was dating and receiving Lord Steyne and using Rawdon as a convenient fool (at her apex he is described as a big-booted side show barker announcing her next performance); and all the tongues in Vanity Fair were wagging about it. And that's because in Vanity Fair, it's not what you do or don't do that matters, but what you can get away with; and that's because Vanity Fair is all about power.

Once Becky loses access to Lord Steyne's Power--when she falls foul of it, in fact--she is a whore whether she lives in a Bohemian garret in Germany or not. Did she really wind up Jos mistress? Maybe. Or maybe she just followed him around to bully and use him--the facts didn't really matter n Vanity Fair. Even the shocking possibility that Becky may have murdered Jos is quickly glossed over. Who knows what really happened?

Given all the things that a left ambiguous (and Vanity Fair's need to leave them ambiguous), I was surprised by the flashback in which George, just before his death at Waterloo, confesses to Dobbin that he is having an "intrigue" with a woman, and that he would prefer for Amelia not to know. But Amelia (and Dobbin, too) already knew where things stood between George and Becky. George humiliated Amelia over her publicly; Aemelia took Becky to task for it during the battle; and the women broke their friendship for many years over it. I think a careful reader has to conclude that there was something sexual going on, and that the flashback confession (much later in a lengthy book) was Thackeray's way of being as discreet as possible about it.

The book's resolution, of course, depends on Amelia's eventual disillusionment with George. Oddly this comes with the disclosure by Becky of a note in which George had proposed that they run away together. This is a strange detail given George's wish that Amelia not find out about the intrigue (perhaps he meant not until he could arrange things), but it seems to have been important for Thackeray to let the reader know that where Becky and George was concerned there was no ambiguity.

Every time I read Vanity Fair I am struck by the almost tenderness with which Thackeray treats Becky. He outlines her flaws pitilessly and to great comic effect, but also shows an odd empathy for her driving forces.


I'm not a Catholic, but don't you mean mortal sins? Her bitterness leads her to venal sins and her successes lead her to mortal ones? If so, I agree.

As far as Napoleon goes, Thackeray would have seem him as a dangerous radical who didn't mind burning Europe for his own ambition. I don't think the metaphor goes beyond that. (The young Napoleon was an anti-French Corsican separatist, by the way).

Venality refers to corruption.

Venial refers to less than mortal sins. [/grammar nazi] (I was a catholic, at some point. :) )

[Pompey Bum]

Oooh, religion nazis are even better than grammar nazis. Fair point and thank you. :)

I think Thackeray loves Becky despite himself. He is a little hard on her at the end though. She's the one who wises Amelia up (finally) as to what a rotter George was, and that (in principle) allows Amelia to get over him and marry Dobbin. But rather than give Becky credit for the book's happy ending, Thackeray has Amelia tell Becky (for no good reason) that she has already written to Dobbin and asked him to come back. Apparently Thackeray didn't want the "artful little minx" to do something so beneficial. Poor Becky. You can tell he digs her, though.