Vanity fair-social climbing

Vanity Fair, whose subtitle is known as A Novel Without A Hero, and which was published between 1847 and 1848, gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The events of the novel happened during the Napoleonic wars, but William Makepeace Thackeray, the author of the novel, intended to represent his own times. It follows the fortunes of two sharply contrasted characters, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Vanity Fair is a portrait of a variety of vanity and corruption, focusing upon descriptions of a chaotic upper society and a chaotic middle class in the 19th century. It is also a miniature of numerous declining societies, full of rumor, deception, hypocrisy as well as lifes ups and downs. Satire is an efficient scheme used to reveal the characteristics of the communities and human minds, which is euphemistic as well as forceful. Using this technique of generalizing from the individual, the author exposes the mercenary and impersonal basis of marriage in an acquisitive, money-oriented, statusconscious society. Becky's desperate attempt to lure Joseph into marriage gives Thackeray the opportunity to discuss society's institutionalization of husband hunting. 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 fianc or, to be more accurate, for his financial and social standing, which leads to a discussion of mercenary marriages in fashionable society . We can take Marias example. Her fianc, 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. Marriage becomes a mercenary pursuit and calculated game for self-enrichment. So Mrs. Bute played for Bute and won him at Harrowgate, while the unhappy Lady Steyne is more brutally sold to Lord Steyne. In their pursuit of social status and money the inhabitants of Vanity Fair create a distorted value system. Love is equated with money, as in the statement that Miss Crawley had a balance at her bankers which would have made her beloved anywhere. In a novel of domestic life, there are no happy marriages because of the egotism, selfishness, folly, and false values of individuals and of society. Similarly, selfishness, vanity, snobbery, and materialism affect every child-parent relationship. In the early 19th century England, people regarded marriage as the simplest form of gaining wealth. At this point, both men and women are trying to achieve this goal. A lot of people married a title, or status rather than their own spouse. Thus marriage seem to be the only way out of poor life or lower social background. It is not infrequent in most societies. Thackeray again and again points out that the folly, social climbing, hypocrisy, cruelty,

avarice, loveless-ness, and selfishness exhibited by individual characters have their origin and counterpart in society as a whole. Vanity Fair satirizes the snobbery and social climbing of a time when the influx of new wealth from industrialization and the rise of stockjobbing was loosening the old class barriers and providing opportunities for parvenus like Becky. One of Becky's weaknesses is the desire to be respectable and accepted into "the best" or fashionable society.