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 conclusion, then, Vanity Fair can be interpreted as presenting a very positive view of human nature; that even in this mess, human spirit remains strong and 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.
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
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, 1953
Rebekah Richards - Rebekah Richards has published fiction and nonfiction in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Brandeis Law Journal, Where the Children Play, ...
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