Vanity FairBy William Makepeace Thackeray Reporter:郑雪莲Group members:许晓昕 张海洲An analysis of Vanity FairThe setting and circumstanceIntroductionThe charactersThe PlotsThe themeThe characteristics of Vanity FairComments on Thackerays novels Settings and CircumstanceVanity Fair is a masterpiece most enduring through time among Thackerays works. The story is about the boisterous upper middle class in the 19th century Britain. It was a time when the country, governed by rich businessmen who made their fortune by exploiting the colonies and laborers, was most strong and prosperous with advanced industry and commerce. It was also a time when the war between France and Britain for power broke out. Settings and CircumstanceVarious members of the upper middle class were all busy themselves in seeking power and position, fame and fortune, which are all connected in themselves. Everyone bustled for their own fortuneVanity Fair is a novel without a Hero, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The books title comes from John Bunyans allegorical story The Pilgrims Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackerays novel.In the novel, Becky Sharp is a classic example of this money-grubbing instinct. Everyone wishes to gain something in Vanity Fair and acts almost in the same manner as Becky.IntroductionGeorge OsborneAmelia SedleyWillian DobbinBecky SharpRawdon CrawleyJoseph SedleyCharactersRebecca Sharp: the leading character, wife of Rawdon (Becky is short for Rebecca)Amelia Sedley: Beckys schoolmate and dear friendRawdon: Beckys husband, a soldierGeorge: Amelias husbandWillian Dobbin: Georges friend, loved Amelia. Joseph Sedley: Amelias brother, liked BeckyBecky: an orphan trying so hard to climb up into the upper class.Becky is clever selfish, bohemian and poor. She had a great ambitions, and used all kinds of impudent ways to achieve her aim. She is faithless to everyone.Amelia, who is good stupid, bourgeois and rich, fell in love with a superficial dandy captain George. He isnt a good man. He was fed up with Amelia soon and went for another women after marriage. Amelia was so in love with this dandy that even after his death she refused to marry another man, until she knew the truth. She married with a good man at last.Rawdon Crawley: Thackeray describes him as a “heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a passion in his life”. George Osborne: a superficial young man, a son of a trader.CharactersThackeray presented his characters as they are real in life. He recorded the failings of his characters, as well as their merits and capacities.He also described his characters through contrast, like Amelia vs Becky.CharactersThackeray tended to probe into those characters minds when he was describing them. His constant acute observation and self analysis enabled him to perceive the moods and emotion of the characters well. He also purposefully portrayed the condition that could change a persons way of life. The PlotsBecky and Amelia leaving schoolIn Amelias home, Becky tries to entrap JosephBecky becoming Sir Pitt Crawleys governess, secretly married to Rawdon CrawleyAmelias father got bankrupt, but captain Dobbin helped her. Amelia get married to George Osborne who later died in the battlefield Rawdon Crawley imprisoned for debt, later, he finds Brecky entertaining Lord Steyne. He leaves for India and dies of fever there.The PlotsBecky met Amelia again and told her the infidelity of George, so Amelia married Dobbin.Becky lives with Joseph and gets all his property when he dies.Becky lives like a grand lady.ThemeThe title suggests the theme: vanity fair. The treasures of vanity fair, are money and position, which are desirable but transient. Thackerays idea, then, is that although one may live in vanity fair, one need not be a slave to its values, which eventually turn into emptiness.The Characteristics of Vanity Fair1.Vanity Fair has a sub-title, A Novel Without a Hero, which intends to portray the bourgeois and aristocratic society as a whole. e.g. 、None of the characters are wholly evil, though. Even Becky, who is amoral and cunning, is thrown on her own resources by poverty and its stigma. The Characteristics of Vanity Fair2.Thackeray employs an omniscient narratoromniscient narrator to tell the story.What is omniscient narrator?Omniscient NarratorOmniscient narrator -an allknowing kind of narrator very commonly found in works of fiction written as thirdperson narratives. The omniscient narrator has a full knowledge of the storys events and of the motives and unspoken thoughts of the various characters. He or she will also be capable of describing events happening simultaneously in different placesa capacity not normally available to the limited point of view of firstperson narratives. In Vanity Fair, the author makes the narration in the tone of a story-teller. The tone is friendly and casual because he acts as a character in the Vanity Fair to recount what he knows well, and it is also quite natural to insert some comments into the narration. Thackeray was such a good narrator that the narration was vivid, interesting and full of humor. The dialogues are vivid and match the characters identities well. Omniscient NarratorThe Characteristics of Vanity Fair3. Vanity Fair is work of social criticism, and is noted for the authors realistic depiction, the ironic and sarcastic tone and constant comment and criticism. Explaination:This kind of realism is based on authors own life experience. The character of Becky Sharp is based in part on Thackerays maternal grandmother Harriet Becher. archetypeArchetype(原型原型)The character of Becky Sharp is based in part on Thackerays maternal grandmother Harriet Becher. She abandoned her husband and children when she eloped with Captain Charles Christie. In 1806 shortly after the death of Christie and her husband she married Edward Butler, another army officer. Thackeray lived with his grandmother in Paris in the 1830s and again in the 1840s.此处资料来源于：http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_Fair_(novel)Vanity Fair reveals the truth of the politics and society of the capitalist world, that is, the ugliness of the society. Thackeray felt that the society was full of those faithless, hopeless and merciless men who were either swindlers or fools with much popularity. Novelists should make people laugh by exposing and making fun of them. Therefore, the novel Vanity Fair aims to reveal all the evils without mercy.The Characteristics of Vanity Fair4.In Vanity Fair, Thackeray gives block characters(人物群体 ).5. Thackeray uses symbolism in Vanity Fair.Comments on Thackerays Novels1) Thackeray is one of the greatest critical realists of the 19th century Europe. He paints life as he has seen it. With his precise and thorough observation, rich knowledge of social life and of the human heart, the pictures in his novels are accurate and true to life.Comments on Thackerays Novels2) Thackeray is a satirist. His satire is caustic(刻薄的，尖锐的) and his humor subtle(精妙的).3) Thackeray is a moralist. His aim is to produce a moral impression in all his novels.