Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero

“She would have liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry before it.”

After leaving school, Becky sets her sights on rising to the upper echelons of English society. To do so, she must subject herself to suffering. Pretending to happily eat the spicy food is an early first step in this process, in which she must act as though she is enjoying herself while John Sedley revels in her discomfort. She endures pain to ingratiate herself with the wealthy.

“A very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.”

Dobbin is not a natural fit for Vanity Fair. The wealthy world of the social elites is built on vapid, meaningless values. No one in these social circles is respectable or honorable, but they claim to be. Dobbin is honest and naive, embodying the qualities that the society falsely claims to esteem. Dobbin’s dislocation is physical as well as spiritual; just as his morals make him a poor fit for Vanity Fair, the residents of Vanity Fair believe his ungainly form makes him stand out.

“He never gives any money to anybody, they said (and this meanness I hate).”

Becky writes to Amelia to complain about Sir Pitt’s meanness. She criticizes him for his lack of charity and his refusal to share his wealth. Becky’s complaints, however, do not come from a place of social concern. She is not annoyed at Sir Pitt’s meanness because of some investment in egalitarianism. Instead, she hates his “meanness” (83) because it hinders her ability to extract money from him. Becky believes that his money is rightfully hers, so she resents him for clinging on to it for as long as he can.

“What’s the good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your debts?”

During her time in Sir Pitt’s house, Becky learns that debts are not a concern for the rich and powerful. Members of the British parliament can happily ignore their creditors, to the point where Sir Pitt wryly comments on this being the true purpose of entering into the political sphere. Debt and responsibility are for the poor, Becky learns, and then later puts this theory into practice for her own benefit.

“The fate of Europe was Lieutenant George Osborne to her.”

To Amelia, her love for George is so intense that she considers him to be more important than war or national interest. She is only vaguely aware of the Napoleonic wars, which are viewed by her peers as an existential threat. For Amelia, all that matters is George. This intense love only makes her a more tragic, pitiable figure when considering that George’s love for Amelia is not nearly as intense or as sincere. Indeed, George does not even pretend to love Amelia strongly or attempt to treat her well, furthering the tragedy of her commitment to him.

“She liked pretty faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice china.”

Matilda surrounds herself with aesthetic beauty. She likes pretty pictures and nice china, an extension of the commodification of the society which favors the aesthetic over the substantive. She has no real friends or family members, as everyone is only interested in her money. Matilda’s sad life is a product of a society which values the appearance of beauty over actual happiness, as she is surrounded by beautiful objects which offer her no emotional benefit.

“This, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object—to walk with you through the Fair, to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.”

The narrator reflects on his role in the novel. His aim is to lead his reader through the metaphorical Vanity Fair, to help them recognize the vapidity of the society itself. The narrator is a social critic, using the narrative to indict the society in which every person hides their misery behind lavish displays of wealth. This, he suggests, is the true nature of the society.

“What a bumpkin he is for a captain in the army.”

Dobbin does not adhere to the social expectations of the ruling social elites. To Mr. Osborne, he is a “bumpkin” (259) whose ungainly physical awkwardness must reflect some deeper issue. Dobbin defies expectations in a physical sense, while also refusing to follow the morality of Vanity Fair. Mr. Osborne disagrees fundamentally with Dobbin, though he regrets this disagreement and Dobbin is eventually vindicated. Dobbin is a good and insightful man, whose nonconformity leads to him being distrusted by the shallow people of the Fair.

“For Dobbin was greatly respected in the regiment, as the best officer and the cleverest man in it.”

In Vanity Fair, the military is a contrasting social institution to the metaphor of the Fair. The Fair represents the social elite and the high society of the age, one which is eventually proved to be vapid and immoral. Dobbin is rejected by the Fair, but his true value is acknowledged in the military. His fellow soldiers respect him, praising his morals and his intelligence. The Fair’s rejection of Dobbin contrasts with the military’s acceptance of Dobbin to elevate Dobbin as the moral center of the story.

“In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of pleasure especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front.”

The characters travel to Belgium during the Napoleonic Wars. Even though several of the male characters are part of the military, and even though the majority of the characters believe that the war is an existential threat (beyond their own chauvinistic nationalism), they cannot bring themselves to leave the Fair behind in England. They bring the lavish parties with them, exhibiting a degree of cognitive dissonance in which the threat to the country is both all-consuming so as to threaten their way of life and so immaterial that they do not need to pause their indulgent way of life in any way. They claim to be under threat, but then turn the front line into an extension of the high society that they experienced in England.

“If this is a novel without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine.”

The narrator is adamant that the novel has no hero, but he puts forward Becky as a potential heroine. In presenting such a morally dubious figure as the heroine of the novel, the narrator interrogates the moral nature of the hero itself. In a corrupt, vapid society, a hero is someone who totally embodies such values. As such, Becky is the most suitable heroine for Vanity Fair, as she is the one who best understands and embodies the morals of the Fair itself.

“It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that Rebecca caught sight of Jos.”

The elites who partied just behind the front lines of the war now find themselves panicking as they try to flee. The same elites who mocked and ostracized Becky now turn to her to buy horses as a means of escaping. Becky mocks these elites, relishing in their “humiliation” (365) and forcing them to reckon with a new reality in which their vast fortunes are rendered meaningless by the circumstances. Becky is unconcerned about the potential threat of the French Army; to her, the real enemies are the social elites who look down on her and who must be humiliated.

“Rebecca did not care much to go and see her son and heir.”

Becky does not love her son because she cannot relate to him. Rawdy is born into a (seemingly) rich society. He grows up surrounded by the trappings of luxury and with unquestioned access to the upper echelons of society. In this way, Rawdy is the living embodiment of everything that Becky wars against. Her personal vendetta against the unfair class structures of the society mean that she can never love her child, as he embodies the same inegalitarianism that she loathes. She sees him as a child of Vanity Fair rather than her own child.

“The elder George returned in him somehow, only improved, and as if come back from heaven.”

Like Becky, Amelia views her child in the context of his father. Whereas Becky loathes the privilege and wealth afforded to her son, Amelia conceptualizes Georgy as the vestigial presence of her dead husband. She loves him twice, as her child and as the legacy left to her by George. When he died, George had very little money. Georgy was all that he left to Amelia and, as a result, he becomes the most treasured thing in her life.

“Glorvina, and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her, became perfectly odious to him.”

In spite of the rumors, Dobbin can never marry Glorvina. He will never be able to marry anyone other than Amelia, as any such potential bride would only serve to remind him of his failure to be with Amelia. Glorvina seems “perfectly odious” (507) to Dobbin as she embodies the idea of a life without Amelia’s love.

“The name of the King was always on her lips.”

The King gives his blessing to Becky, which becomes the crowning triumph of her progress up the ladder of British society. She talks about meeting the King as a way of both congratulating herself and reminding her critics of her success. By speaking about the King, she is able to revel in the spite and bitterness of her rivals.

“Her success excited, elated, and then bored her.”

Becky’s greatest achievement is the blessing she receives from the King. This achievement, however, leaves her with no worlds left to conquer. After meeting the King, there is no one of a higher rank that she can charm and manipulate as a means of defying the low status of her birth. Her successful admittance to the social elite, however, reveals that there is nothing substantive in this world. All that matters to Becky is arriving in the Fair, as the Fair offers nothing to its inhabitants beyond status. Becky is bored in victory as the Fair offers nothing as substantiative as the individualistic class war she has been waging.

“I am innocent.”

Becky reiterates her innocence to her husband, just after he has caught her in a compromising position with another man and just after he has learned that she has been hiding money from him throughout their marriage. Becky repeats her innocence like a mantra because she genuinely believes it to be true. For Becky, the corrupt and decadent society cannot—in any meaningful way—judge her or find her guilty.

“I will tell you what happened.”

Faced with the prospect of a duel because he has been caught in a potential scandal, Lord Steyne is able to use his wealth and privilege to rewrite reality. He sends an emissary who, like the narrator, tells his audience what happened. These claims are asserted with the confidence of a man who knows that the wealthy society is self-policing; the rich elites of the society may praise themselves as honest and reputable, but their hypocrisy and immorality is hidden beneath a thin veneer created by their wealth.

“How many a time had he longed for that moment, and thought of her far away under hot winds—and in weary marches, gentle and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating poverty with sweet submission.”

Dobbin’s perception of Amelia is the complete opposite of the way in which Becky has been characterized throughout the novel. Becky was born into a poor family and, through sheer determination, she climbed to the highest parts of British society. She refused to accept the rigid class structure of the world around her. Amelia, meanwhile, was born into a wealthy family that became poor. When Dobbin considers Amelia, he believes her to be “decorating poverty with sweet submission” (684). Amelia has internalized the immutability of class structure, and she accepts poverty with submission, which Dobbin subconsciously views as sweet. He would never think this way about Becky, whom he loathes, as she challenges the unfair, unwritten rules of the society that even sympathetic characters like Amelia and Dobbin have internalized.

“[Mr. Scape] admitted, I say, partner into the great agency house of Fogle and fake two years before it failed for a million, and plunged half the Indian public into misery and ruin.”

The narrator hints at the way in which the British colonial state enriches British people at the expense of colonial subjects. A greedy British man joins a small firm with the purpose of extracting wealth from India and, through their work, manage to plunge “half the Indian public into misery and ruin” (701). The colonial wealth generated by Britain fuels the vapid decadence of Vanity Fair, which is built on the bones of the non-white colonial subjects thousands of miles away. Such wealth for such a limited number of people demands the misery and suffering of millions.

“The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles.”

While touring around Europe, the characters find themselves in similar situations to those that they left behind. Each aristocratic court in Europe is a dull and distant echo of everything else, in which the wealthy move from city to city, party to party, without every experiencing anything new. The gardens are just replicas, attempts to reconstruct the glamor of a bygone age but which lose luster as they become further removed from the reality they are trying to replicate. There is nothing individual, unique, or substantive about the aristocracy, just an illusory echo of something that once was.

“Go away from Rome, I tell you—or you will be ill and die.”

When she catches a glimpse of Lord Steyne in Rome, Becky receives a death threat. That Lord Steyne is comfortable enough to make such a direct threat shows how removed he feels from consequences, both moral and legal. His wealth shields him from prosecution; even though both he and Becky were equally culpable in their scandal, he is richer so he gets to dictate when and where Becky is allowed to exist. More importantly for Becky, she is reminded that she is permanently excluded from the social circles of the elite, meaning that she has lost her war.