Who is happy in Vanity Fair? Who has not a desire in Vanity Fair? This is a world of charades. The novelist has been criticized for his moralistic interpolations and genteel observations upon the manners of his characters. But they are candid. What redeems them is the abundant sympathy the author shows for the vanities of humanity. It is not sordid or sarcastic. At the end of the novel he says ‘Common readers let us shut the box and close the puppets for the play has come to an end and we have played our part.’ The novelist draws upon the behavior of the day. The theme of the novel is vanity. Every character is affected by it, except perhaps honest Dobbin, Amelia Sedley and Lady Jane Crawley. George Osborne and Joseph Sedley are the faithful examples of personified vanity; one is an embodiment of elegance and genteelness, who would be pleased to be seen in the company of Lords and Duchesses, the other is a weak, dull-spirited, although extremely peevish dandy. Joseph Sedley spends an extraordinary amount of time with his elaborate toilette. Old Osborne and old Sedley are also vainglorious as are Osborne’s daughter Lady Bullock and Sedley’s wife.
Old Osborne epitomizes the English urban upper class attitude. He would pay any amount of money to purchase the title of a Lord for his son. Old Sedley is quite disillusioned with the loss of his property and turns to prattling about his erstwhile days of facile richness. He is not forgetful of his days of wealth and still assumes the air of a genteel Russell Square merchant. Vanity as the author repeatedly remarks is the bug that catches everyone. Sir Crawley who aims at nothing more than a clergyman’s life or giving sermons turns out to be quite a dandy himself after he is bequeathed the property of his aunt. He becomes a nobleman aspiring for a career in the ministry. His manners assume gentility. A quiet man who is generally aloof from all, turns out to be a good host and an eager guest. He is vain too; vain to be associated with Becky Sharp; Mrs. Rawdon Crawley who is the definition of fashion and genteelness. Old Mrs. Crawley is another one of those proud characters who populate the novel. She is dismissive, rather contemptuous of any opinion other than her own. She amuses herself by picturing the oddities and peculiarities of her work folk. Becky sharp is a great hit with her. But even Becky cannot get the old woman to be reconciled with her nephew whom she disowns for his foolish, disreputable marriage. Rawdon Crawley is one character who is the marked opposite of the vanities of his society along with William Dobbin and Amelia Sedley. Rawdon is boisterous and fun loving. Gentleness and irony will not do for him. He knows to speak only in the simplest of terms and the commonest of styles. He takes Becky for wife: Becky who is the web of complexity, a spider who revels in the intricateness of her wit and conversation. Rawdon Crawley comes to the point quickly. Although he is a co-conspirator in all of Becky’s schemes initially, he has a honest conscience and is seen revolting against Becky’s schemes of double dealing and swindling later. Rawdon’s pleasures are the pleasures of a lusty, fiery young man; betting, gambling, horse riding, brawls, duels etc.
If he does not go to church he does not say artful, false prayers either. He is altogether artless as is Dobbin in the expression of his love and his life is flexed and commanded by Becky, by her charm or by her wicked intelligence. He redeems himself in his love for the child Rawdon. He knows that Becky has not shown enough maternal affection for the child but acknowledges a thousand and one commitments on her part and her unstinting hardship to put him in a comfortable position and to pull on their little establishment which has no honorable sum to draw upon. Rawdon Crawley is distraught when he discovers Rebecca in the company of Lord Steyne at his apartments. This is a great blow to him as is his discovery of money in Rebecca’s protected chests and drawers and which she has just refused to part with to save Rawdon from the debtor’s prison. In fact he suspects it to be her machination to keep him away during the time of her company with Lord Steyne. He goes away on his Governorship to a colony refusing to patch up with Rebecca in-spite of the admonitions of Sir Crawley.
Amelia is portrayed as a meek, gentle being, harmless and guileless to the core. Indeed she is a babe among wolves or a creature who needs to be protected always. If not for William Dobbin’s steadfast devotion she may have had to disappear in a plight of agony and tears.
The author has chosen to reserve the best happiness in life for Amelia Sedley after her marriage with William Dobbin. George doesn’t realize the purity of Amelia’s affection. Although he is aware of her worth, he is captivated by the charming Rebecca Sharp and which man in the novel does not fall for her fatal attraction except William Dobbin. Gorge Osborne wrecks Amelia’s heart, Rawdon Crawley is scorned and defamed, Lord Steyne has to nurse an injured pride, Joseph Sedley dies a mysterious death forever afraid of his little companion Becky. All the multifarious minor characters are defenseless against this high priestess of fashion, wit, intellect, humor and guile. She deceives everyone equally with a smile and copious tears. Amelia remains attached to George’s memory in-spite of the faint suspicion of his carelessness for her affection during their stay in Brussels. Dobbin’s constant affection to her only strengthens her resolve to never bury her love for George. Indeed this is what effects Old Osborne’s reconciliation to his son’s widow. She also sees George’s living image in her son who is no less a dandy and a braggart nevertheless immensely attached to Mum and to Mr. Dobbin; his God father or Mr. Sugarplum as the Irish girl calls him. It is ironical that the greatest happiness in Amelia’s life is provided for by Becky’s greatest good gesture throughout the novel. This is perhaps one flash of kindness, an abstraction in an ocean of artifice.
Rebecca Sharp of Vanity Fair is the towering achievement of the novelist Thackeray. She is not gorgeous; she is not even beautiful but she is charming and vivacious. She is the perfect artist, the perfect feigner and the perfect mimic. She has no love for humanity. One suspects she has an aversion for all things gentle and tender. Her wit is scorching, her conversation extremely clever and her manner seductive. She cuts anyone and everyone with a look except if the other person has some utility for her. One wonders what extreme confidence she is bestowed with for one who has so meagre a means and very thin holding. She thrives on her intellect, on her superb talents, French and music, her bonhomie which is quite a shock to the elegant ladies and her unstinting urge to succeed in the realization of her desires.
The novelist needs to be congratulated for not lapsing into melodrama or moralism regarding Rebecca. He is never judgmental. She loves no one but uses everyone from Amelia Sedley to Joseph Sedly to Pit Crawley to her land lord. Everybody is answered and pleased with either a charming smile or abundant tears. But Rebecca lives in dread of the great and glorious. When presented to court, she is virtue personified, eulogizing the remarkable greatness of Lord Chamberlain. Her talk is delightfully wicked. She has a troop of male admirers at all places.
She is the perfect host, making profuse apologies and letting the others blush about her sparse lodgings and frugal establishment. They are allowed to talk, make all sorts of confessions to her. Joseph Sedley and the elder Crawley make themselves fools before her and she laughs, laughs heartily about their prattle, their monstrous infirmities after their departure. She has no kindness, not even to her tender giant of a husband Rawdon Crawley or to her child, the little Rawdon. She is always and will remain a charming socialite lady. She may have said her prayers but her life is loaded with artifice and bewitching. She bewitches George Osborne; her best friend Amelia’s husband. She is afraid only of William Dobbin who will not fall in her trap and is as sturdy as a rock in his attachment to Amelia all through his life. Indeed it is a great defect on her part that she does not love her child Rawdon. Her sister Lady Jane despises her for this lack of maternal affection.
She may have realized all her ambitions if not for Rawdon’s wrecking of her happy tete-a-tete with Lord Steyne. He impounds her chests and discovers cash to his shock. He carries away the cash to clear off the debts and return the 1000 pound note to Lord Steyne. He leaves her never to return. All her servants revolt against her and her little household is wrecked.
She falls from the grace of Lord Steyne and starts roaming Europe. When at Venice she meets Lord Steyne at a banquet and tries to revive an old acquaintance, but has to undergo the mortification of being turned off. The novelist says Rebecca could never repress the bonhomie that she inherited from her parents who were a painter and an opera dancer. She clings on to Amelia who is ready to forgive and forget. She embraces Rebecca with an open heart in her days of misery. She may have once again used Amelia for every one of her schemes and ploys but for some sudden change of mind she advises Amelia to go to William Dobbin and chides her blind faith to George who had after all been unfaithful to Amelia. The novelist speaks through insinuations regarding Rebecca,when he speaks of the death of Joseph Sedley after he has made a large insurance on his life. There is a shade of horror in Rebecca’s character.
But she is a fascinating study. She rises from an orphan to the wife of a Baron’s son, to an elegant lady, to a vagabond of various names. (To be continued)