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Vanity Fair
Something about
author:
William Makepeace Thackeray: an
English novelist of the 19th
century. famous
for his satirical works Vanity Fair, a panoramic
portrait of English life and background
Richmond,
was born at South Mimms and went to
India in 1798 at the age of
sixteen to assume
his duties as writer (secretary) with the East
India
Company. Richmond fathered a daughter,
Sarah Redfield, born in
1804, by Charlotte
Sophia Rudd, his native and possibly Eurasian
mistress, the mother and daughter being named
in his will. Such
liaisons were common among
gentlemen of the East India Company,
and it
formed no bar to his later courting and marrying
William's
Anne Becher, born 1792, was of
the reigning beauties of the
day,
Parganas
district d. Calcutta, 1800), of an old Bengal
civilian family
for the tenderness of its
Becher, her sister
Harriet, and widowed mother
Harriet had been sent back to India by
her
authoritarian guardian grandmother, widow Ann
Becher, in 1809
on the Earl Howe. Anne's
grandmother had told her that the man she
loved, Henry Carmichael-Smyth, an ensign of
the Bengal Engineers
whom she met at an
Assembly Ball in Bath, Somerset during 1807,
had died, and Henry was told that
Anne was no longer interested in
him. This was
not true. Though Carmichael-Smyth was from a
distinguished Scottish military family, Anne's
grandmother went to
extreme lengths to thwart
their marriage; surviving family letters
state
that she wanted a better match for her
granddaughter.
Anne Becher and Richmond
Thackeray were married in Calcutta on
13
October 1810. Their only child, William, was
subsequently born
on 18 July was a fine
miniature portrait of the exuberant
and
youthful Anne Becher Thackeray and William
Makepeace
Thackeray at about age 2, done in
Madras by George Chinnery c.
1813.
Her
family's deception was unexpectedly revealed in
1812, when
Richmond Thackeray unwittingly
invited to dinner the supposedly
dead
Carmichael-Smyth. After Richmond's death of a
fever on 13
September 1815, Anne married Henry
Carmichael-Smyth on 13
March 1817, but they
did not return to England until 1820, though
they had sent William off to school there more
than three years
before. The separation from
his mother had a traumatic effect on the
young
Thackeray which he discusses in his essay
in
The Roundabout Papers.
He is British comedian
Al Murray's great-great-great-grandfather
This
book Written by William Makepeace Thackeray, first
published in 1847–48,
satirizing society in early 19th-century
Britain. The book's title comes from John
Bunyan's
allegorical story The Pilgrim's
Progress, Vanity fair refers to
a stop along
the pilgrim's progress: a never-ending fair held
in a town called Vanity, which is meant to
represent man's
sinful attachment to worldly
things.
Literary criticism
Contemporary critics :
Critics hailed the
work as a literary treasure before the last
part finished. Although the critics were
superlative in their
praise, they expressed
disappointment at the unremittingly
dark
portrayal of human nature, fearing Thackeray had
taken his dismal metaphor too far. In response
to his critics,
Thackeray explained that he
saw people for the most part
Theorists :
The subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, is apt
because the
characters are all flawed to a
greater or lesser degree; even
the most
sympathetic have weaknesses. The human
weaknesses Thackeray illustrates are mostly to
do with
greed, idleness, and snobbery, and the
scheming, deceit and
hypocrisy which mask them. None of the
characters are
wholly evil, though.
The
work is often compared to the other great
historical
novel which covered the Napoleonic
wars: Tolstoy's War and
Peace. While Tolstoy's
work has a greater emphasis on the
historical
detail and the effect the war has upon his
protagonists, Thackeray instead uses the
conflict as more of
a backdrop to the lives of
his characters. 2004: Vanity Fair:
directed by
Mira Nair and adapted from William
Makepeace
Thackeray's novel of the same name. The
previous subject of numerous television and
film adaptations,
this version made
substantial changes, most notably being
the
almost complete transformation of the character of
Becky Sharp.
The film was nominated for
Award in 2004
Venice Film Festival Comments on
Thackeray’s Novels
1) 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.
2) 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
Something about the book:
Vanity Fair is a
book which is fantastic as well as rather
critical.
After reading it this team, I would
like to say something about the
critics about
this novel.
Vanity Fair is written by English
author William Makepeace
Thackeray. Even
before the last serial was published, critics
hailed
the work as a literary treasure.
Although the critics were superlative
in their
praise, they expressed disappointment at the
unremittingly
dark portrayal of human nature,
fearing he had taken his dismal
metaphor too
far. Thackeray responding to critics explained
that he
saw people for the most part foolish
and selfish
The unhappy ending aimed to cause
readers to look inward at their
own
shortcomings.
The subtitle, A Novel without a
Hero, is apt because the
characters are all
flawed to a greater or lesser degree; even the
most
sympathetic have weaknesses, for example
Captain Dobbin who is
prone to vanity and
melancholy. The human weaknesses Thackeray
illustrates are mostly to do with greed,
idleness, and snobbery, and
the scheming, deceit and hypocrisy which mask
them. 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
(she is the daughter of an artist who
is in debt). This tendency of
Thackeray's to
highlight faults in all of his characters displays
his
desire for a greater level of realism in
his fiction compared to the
rather unlikely or
idealized people in many contemporary novels.
The novel is a satire of society as a whole,
characterized by
hypocrisy and opportunism,
but it is not a reforming novel; there is
no
suggestion that social or political changes, or
greater piety and
moral reformism could
improve the nature of society. It thus paints a
fairly bleak view of the human condition. This
bleak portrait is
continued with Thackeray’s
own role as an omniscient narrator, one
of the
writers best known for using the technique. He
continually
offers asides about his characters
and compares them to actors and
puppets, but
his scorn goes even as far as his readers;
accusing all
who may be interested in such
anity Fairs
lazy, or a benevolent, or a
sarcastic mood
The work is often compared to
the other great historical novel
which covered
the Napoleonic wars: Tolstoy's War and Peace.
While
Tolstoy's work has a greater emphasis on
the historical detail and the
effect the war
has upon his protagonists, Thackeray instead uses
the
conflict as more of a
backdrop to the lives of his characters. The
momentous events on the continent do not
always have an equally
important influence on
the behaviors of Thackeray's characters,
rather their faults tend to compound over
time. This is in contrast to
the redemptive
power conflict has on the characters in War and
Peace. For Thackeray, the Napoleonic wars as a
whole can be thought
of as one more of the
vanities expressed in the title.
The
suggestion, near the end of the work, that Becky
may have
killed Jos is argued against by John
Sutherland in his book Is Heath
cliff A
Murderer? : Great Puzzles In Nineteenth-century
Fiction.
Although Becky is portrayed as having
a highly dubious moral sense,
the idea that
she would commit premeditated murder is quite a
step
forward for the character. Thackeray was
a fierce critic of the crime
fiction popular
at the time, particularly that of Edward
Bulwer-Lytton. These lurid and sensationalist
accounts—known as
gate novels—took their
inspiration, and sometimes entire
stories,
from the pages of The New gate Calendar. What
Thackeray
principally objected to was the
glorification of a criminal's deeds; it
therefore seems strange that he would have
depicted Becky as such a
villainess. His
intent may have been to entrap the Victorian
reader
with their own prejudices and make them
think the worst of Becky
Crawley née Sharp
even when they have no proof of her actions. This
interpretation is not helped
by the trio of lawyers she gets to defend
her
from the claims, Burke, Thurtell, and Hayes, named
after
prominent murders of the time (although
this may have been further
commentary aimed at
the legal profession).
Though Thackeray does
not settle definitively whether Becky
murders
Jos, such a development is in keeping with the
overall trend
of character development in the
novel. The tone of Vanity Fair seems
to darken
as the book goes on. At the novel's beginning,
Becky Sharp
is a bright girl with an eye to
improving her lot through marrying up
the
social scale; though she is thoroughly
unsentimental, she is
nonetheless portrayed as
being a good friend to Amelia. By novel's
end
she is (implied to have become) an adulterer and a
murderer.
Amelia begins as a warm-hearted and
friendly girl, though
sentimental and naive,
but by story's end she is portrayed as vacuous
and shallow. Dobbin appears first as loyal and
magnanimous, if
unaware of his own worth; by
the end of the story he is presented as a
tragic fool, a prisoner of his own sense of
duty who knows he is
wasting his gifts on
Amelia but is unable to live without her. Whether
Thackeray intended this shift in tone when he
began writing, or
whether it developed over
the course of the work's composition, is a
question that cannot be settled. Regardless of
its provenance, the
novel's increasingly grim
outlook can take readers aback, as
characters whom Thackeray-- and
the reader-- at firs hold in
sympathy are
shown to be unworthy of such regard.
However,
Vanity Fair is a most wonderful novel. I am fond
of it
so much. Becky Sharp, Amelia Sedley,
Rawdon Crawley, Sir Pitt
Crawley, Baronet
always come to my mind while I am reading Vanity
Fair lately. I think it’s worth reading and I
will never forget.
Main idea
:
Becky
Sharp and Amelia Sedley together
leave the
shelter of Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young
now inhabit the infinitely more fascinating and
dangerous Vanity Fair where the only standard
is worldly
,charming and amoral,is well-fitted
for the
fight; whjen an ill-judged bowl of
punch ruins her plans for
marriage,her quick
wits soon find a range of
sweet and
sentimental Amelia only longs
for her
worthless soldier lover.
William Makepeace
Thackeray (1811-63),English novelist
and
satirist,Thackeray was best known for his
satirical and
moralistic studies of upper-
class and middle class England.
He was born in
Calcutta in India in 1811,the only son of an
officer in the East India Company's Civil
Service.
Main Characters:Rebecca Becky Sharp
• Amelia Sedley Osborne
• Colonel Rawdon Crawley
• Captain
George Osborne
• Pitt Crawley Baronet
•
Miss Matilda Crawley
• Joseph 'Jos' Sedley
• Major William Dobbin
• Lord Darlington