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❖ Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was born in Calcutta, India, and moved to England when he was 5 years old. He attended many universities but all dropped out because he did not like book theory. He studied painting but only drew caricatures for his works.

❖ Thackeray is known in English Literature as an essayist as well as a novelist. His English Humorists and The Four Georges are among the finest essays of the nineteenth century. Thackeray was Dickens's contemporary.

❖ He is first of a realist, who paints life as he sees it. As he says himself, "I have no brains above my eyes; I describe what I see". He pictures notably the weak and vicious elements of society/ they are accurate and true to life.

❖ He was more interested in the manners and morals of the high society than in the great upheavals of the age. He gives in his novels accurate and true picture especially of the vicious elements of society.

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Before the success of Vanity Fair, Thackeray worked as a free-lance journalist for about ten years, publishing literary criticism, art criticism, topical articles, and fiction either anonymously or under a number of comic pseudonyms. The Yellowplush Papers (1837-38), Catherine (1839-40), A Shabby Genteel Story (1840), Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond (1841), and Barry Lyndon (1844) all appeared in Fraser's, while The Book of Snobs (1846-7) gave Thackeray his first notoriety when it appeared as The Snobs of England in Punch.

During this apprenticeship, Thackeray also produced his first books, collections of essays and observations published as travel books. The Paris Sketch Book (1840) sold enough to cover its costs, provide its author with decent payment, and, perhaps most importantly for Thackeray, interest publishers in seeing more of his work. He sold The Irish Sketch Book (1843) to Chapman and Hall, the publishers of Dickens and Carlyle, and also turned a comic series done for Punch about a trip to the East into another book, Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo (1846). In addition he considered doing a series for Blackwood's on Belgium.

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BRITISH HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF BIRTH OF "VANITY FAIR"

19th-century British society underwent a complex transformation in social structure. The fierce social conflict, the contradiction between labor and capital, emerged to the forefront, causing the masses of the people to gradually lose faith in democracy - capital. British realist literature took shape and flourished in that tense atmosphere, realists seemed to be aware of the dark truths of the golden age - under the rule of Queen Victoria as well as the historical mission. history of the proletariat. This has really appealed to British writers like Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte, etc

MEANING OF TITLE

The title of this novel was an allusion, quite familiar in these days, to the city of London which had been described as Vanity Fair in the famous 17th-century religious allegory of John Bunyan: “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (1678). It is also associated with the book of the Bible whose memorable words are “ALL IS VANITY”. His main subject is the false heartless ways and the resourceful hypocrisy of society, the silent misery of simple souls.

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The story of the novel is that of two girls who meet in school, Rebecca Sharp, and Amelia Sedley. After leaving school, the girls remain, friends and Amelia, brings the orphan Rebecca into her home to meet her family. Rebecca, however, is an extremely manipulative, grasping woman who is only interested in marrying up. At first, she sets her designs on Amelia’s brother but then eventually has to leave to start a new career as a governess in the Crawley household. Rebecca charms everyone she meets, and she marries the young Mr. Crawley within months, hoping that he is heir to his elderly aunt’s fortune. Unfortunately, the aunt is upset by marriage and takes Rebecca’s husband, Rawdon out of her will.

Meanwhile, Rawdon, Amelia’s new husband, George and his best friend, Dobbin are sent to Germany to fight Napoleon’s army. During the battle of Waterloo, George dies, and Amelia is heartbroken but shortly afterward learns that she is pregnant with his child. Rebecca is also pregnant but not as enthusiastic about having a child. Many years pass with Amelia raising her son and Rebecca and Rawdon going from country to country, making their way up into high society and then eventually having to flee the country to avoid their creditors.

After a while, Rawdon catches Rebecca with another man and divorces her, taking their son away. Dobbin admits that he has been in love with Amelia for years and they eventually marry. Rawdon soon dies, and his son inherits his families estate. He and Amelia, Dobbin and their children live in London as happy neighbors while Rebecca disappears to live out her life alone.

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REBECCA'S ASPIRATION TO STEP INTO THE UPPER CLASS

Every human is born, grows up and matures with dreams and ambitions. And they will try their best to achieve those things. There are different ways to do it, some people try with their own abilities and strengths, but some people rely on the status of those around them, rely on the power of money to achieve their goals.

Rebecca is the character that is put lots of heart by the author. She was born in poor family. As a young girl “the daughter of a lowly family”,  her father is a debauched painter, her mother is a French dancer. Lack of education from a young age, soon spoiled in a still opaque environment, but in return Rebecca was smart with good look and talent.

With the death of her mother, she spent her childhood with her rude, irascible father. With growthing up, she met  different people and saw the ugly side of society. Therefore, she understood that she had to work her way into upper - class society by anyway.

In order to achieve her ambitious, after leaving school, she rushed to the path of advancement. Arriving at Amelia's house, she launched an attack on your rich brother, Joseph. The greed for fame and gain has obscured the shyness of a seventeen - year - old girl. The job failed, Rebecca went to tutor Pitt Crawley's family, a noble family in the countryside and quickly became the daughter - in - law of this family.

It can be said that Rebecca is a typical character for the aspiration to step into the upper class in the work, through Rebecca's actions, it has also exposed the false and ignorant face of the nobility, and has represented both degenerates, defying tricks to rise to the aristocracy.

REBECCA'S DESIRE FOR LOVE IN "VANITY FAIR"

Love is one of the most sacred human emotions and also an inspiration that never dies in literature. In Vanity Fair, Rebecca’s Love shows up with clear trend : pragmatic love trend. For Rebecca, getting married is not for love, not for sex, but rather as a ladder for her to climb to the high status of the elite.
Rebecca comes from a "luxury and frivolous" society, which has corrupted human morality and personality. Living in a dusty environment, Rebecca cannot avoid temptations, ambitions.

Rebecca believes that there is no faster way to the rich world than marrying a rich man. To fulfill her life-changing ambition, Rebecca did not hesitate to exchange both her youth and love. Love for Rebecca is only pragmatic, not sincere love. With her inherent beauty and intelligence, Rebecca is ready to seduce any man she thinks has a lot of money. The first is Joseph - Amelia's brother, she has "decided in her heart to win the heart of that handsome guardian".
In order to secure stable position for herself, she flirted with men such as General Tufto and the Marquis of Steyne to get Rawdon promoted after marrying. She never cared about her love or her family. The only thing she wanted to do was to enter the upper class.

What she cared about was not who she would get married to, but the social status which could bring to her in this marriage.

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AMELIA'S DESIRE FOR LOVE

Exactly opposite to Rebecca, Amelia has many advantages of her living background. Amelia was born in a rich upper - class family and received a decent education since childhood. Miss Pinkerton describes her as industrious, obedient, sweet, and beloved. Besides, she had extraordinary knowledge, and treated people appropriately. Amelia is innocent, gentle, emotional, full of dreams and faithful. Living in a peaceful environment, always protected, made her passive, naive and lacked real life experience.

If Rebecca's attitude to love is pragmatic, Amelia is the representation of the tendency to true love. In a love relationship with George: She gives all her love to the one. She loves him faithfully and unconditionally and always aspires to be the ideal woman of the family. She remains soppily devoted to him despite his neglect of her. After her husband’s death: Poor Amelia lived in misery, she was faithful and she can not forget the memory of her dead husband.

After Becky shows George’s flirtation note, Amelia finally realises that George was not the perfect man she always thought, and that she has rejected a better man- Dobbin who is an emotional, selfless and noble person who always secretly loves and wholeheartedly supports Amelia.

AMELIA'S DESIRE FOR ORDINARY HAPPINESS

Vanity Fair" is an excellent work depicting society and people in the context of England in the early 19th century which witnessed a moral decline. However there are still praiseworthy moral values and people with simple desire for happiness, sincere love and undying loyalty. They are Amelia and Dobbin.

Amelia wishes to have a normal cozy family - a rare and precious thing left in contemporary society.

She did not become arrogant because of the status of a rich daughter, nor did she take advantage of her existing position to create momentum for advancement in the upper-class. She enjoyed her life to the fullest and appreciated what she had had. Wholeheartedly love George, wholeheartedly fight for her happiness

Somewhere in the "Vanity Fair" is the chaos of a society with no way out because of the deadlocks of the desire to live. But glimmering in the confusion of the "fair", there are still holy people who quietly live with idyllic dreams.

Amelia is an ideal character for those who crave simple and warm happiness from love and family instead of following the trends of the upper - class.

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CAUSES OF MORAL DECLINE AND THE ATTRACTION OF MONEY 

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CAUSES OF MORAL DECLINE AND THE ATTRACTION OF MONEY 

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CAUSES

There are two main causes of the moral decline: The magic of money and Class prejudice in society.

THE MAGIC OF MONEY

* Money dominated the entire contemporary British society.

"Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray is an excellent novel of English literature in general and typical of the realism movement in particular in the nineteenth century. On the background of a society full of political, social and cultural changes ... life becomes a mess, the sprawling reality has led to an inevitable consequence that is a change in human relationships, and view of the world and society.

The great happenings of this period have pushed people to an alarming state of moral decay, and the values in life are brutally reversed. So, Thackeray reflects vividly and honestly the society of this era in his writings with a sarcastic and lashing attitude.

Morality in British society is in a sharp and serious decline, the root cause is also due to the power of money. Money rules all aspects of life; fame and fortune always go together; money is the measure of false values; and money degrades morality.

In more than 1200 pages of Vanity Fair, the word "money" appears in a dense frequency with more than 550 words. The power and nature of money are illustrated by the author in a dark and evil way, just as dark as society and humanity. In Vanity Fair, humanity is a luxury aspect, greed for fame is the essence and money is a witch who can transform and burn good values on the heartless fire to ashes.

* The force of money pushes people to a moral decline

Money and fame reign in society, human morality is so pale as porridge that in order to get that kind of feeling called luxury, one has to “No money, no talk”.

Social classes race to climb the ladder of fame and fortune, because they think that the happiest thing is to have a noble position and have a lot of money. Money returns to its original nature and its "noble" role is to build a new "moral morality", which is both practical and useful. As well as Woe to the people who only know how to flatter and fear those with money and status.

Here are some typical characters like:

Rebecca Sharp is both greedy for honours and greedy for gain, she uses her cunning intelligence to seduce wealthy men.

Mr. Pitt Crawley is rich but stingy. He is an old man, short, fat, rude and disgustingly dirty, moreover, he is very miserly.

* Money is a measure of human emotions and values

The upper class in Vanity Fair are very rich in material but poor in spirit, Or rather, spiritual values are bankrupt.

In contrast, the middle and lower classes are poor, but their love and humanity constantly sublimate creating beautiful values. Reading the work, we can't help but be surprised when we discover the tiny light spots full of humanity. It was Dobbin's noble and quiet love for Amelia Sedley for 12 long years. The major was infatuated with her, sending her money regularly and helping her a lot when her husband George Osborne died in battle. Or Rawdon paid the debt for Mrs. Brigo, and he also provided monthly support for his son and Rebecca.

In the race of fame and fortune, money makes people love and hate each other in just a moment; People without money and status are despised and scorned. So, you can see that money in vanity society is extremely important and becomes a measure of human value. It is the direct cause of pushing people to the position of a king, a queen, and it also sinks people into the lower classes of society.

=> In summary, the money in the Vanity Fair was fully utilized by the author to highlight the moral decline in society. The magic of money is terrifying. The icy nature of money corrupts morality in British society at that time.

MORAL DECLINE THROUGH THE "VANITY FAIR"

Through the eyes of a director looking down at the Vanity Fair, The author Thackeray not only highlights the aspirations of human life but also deals a drastic blow to their thoughts and psychology. The prejudice of social class, the attraction of money magic is one of the causes of the moral decline, which is the voice protesting against injustice in society. With that bitter laugh, Thackeray indirectly expressed anger in the masses. Dive into the philosophy of this realism, The author has brought to the reader the color of morality and ethics, which is the bridge for the writer to stand on the moral point of view and condemn life through the typical characters in the work.

Besides, The morality in the Vanity Fair is clothed with a luxurious and splendid brocade coat, but inside is a picture of moral decadence that emerges with naked, vile emotions. It is hypocrisy, selfishness, self-interest, and deception; as well as tarnishing the most sacred human emotions: the love of father and son, husband and wife, mother and child, friends, etc... The author successfully portrays famous characters in the upper society with all classes and walks of life.

Moreover, In the "Vanity Fair", Money-Love-Ethics go hand in hand. Thackeray has shown that when money reigns on the highest ladder of society, it leads to emotional vanity and moral decadence.

In short, Society in that vanity world is constantly changing; gaining and losing in the blink of an eye; no position is stable such as the character Rebecca or Mr. Sedley, etc... People find ways to get money, and then use the money to buy fame, rank, and status; They compete for a social position, and carry out one plot after another to affirm, to advance, and to be respected.

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The work was originally titled Sketches of British Society. And those "scribbles" were considered as "caricatures" of the British upper society at that time.

In Vanity Fair, Thackeray has brought readers into a stratified society with many different classes of people of different classes and classes. Each character in the work is a typical image for each class and class and carries the image of the era itself.

Vanity Fair 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. One of the most striking features of British social was its serious gap between the rich and the poor. Capitalists enjoyed comfortable life while the poor were rushing for terrible unemployment. During this period, parents controlled their children's marriage because most of their children were dependent on family financial support.

*Rebecca

Rebecca represents the lower-class in British society. Rebecca was a child of poor artist and dancer, she was despised and treated unfairly. When she was in Miss Pinkerton’s school. She was generally disliked by all the other girls due to the family condition.

Although Miss Crawley is fond of Rebecca, Miss Crawley chagrined and angry when Rebecca married to her nephew, Rawdon Crawley because she did not want scandal or unwise marriage in her family.
Rebecca aspires to integrate into aristocracy to have a better life.

*Sedley's Family

Mr. Sedly was a wealthy merchant who was always respected by everyone. When Sedley’s family went bankrupt, his family was pushed down from a rich merchant to the lower class. No longer respected but despised, lowly to the pitiful.

*Miss Pinkerton
Miss. Pinkerton belongs to the aristocracy, is the founder of Miss Pinkerton School at Chiswick Mall, specializing in educating young ladies of the lineage. She is the representative image of contemporary British education.

Miss Pinkerton is a person who has a high status and fame in society. In fact, it's all just "fake flaunting"!

Miss. Pinkerton was widely respected as a person who "didn't know a single word in French. A person who works in education but is unfair.

Through Thackeray's sarcastic pen lashed out strongly education in contemporary society. Even when people are in the environment of upbringing, they still suffer from class and class distinctions, suffer injustices in treatment...

*The Crawley House
Old lady Crawley was a rich aunt with her enormous sum of more than seventy thousand pounds. Although Aunt Crawley was very fond of Rebecca and kept her close to her, and though she also admired the scandals and foolish marriages of others, she refused to allow scandals and scandals. That foolish marriage happened in his   family.

Caste is the measure of all social relationships. She did not allow a low-class, low-status person like Rebecca to enter her aristocratic family.

*Ossborne's Family
Mr. Osborne was born in a poor family, uneducated man, but through wisdom and opportunity, he rose to the status of a merchant.

When he became rich, Osborne repaid his benefactor - Mr. Sedley - with blatant betrayal. When the Sedley family went bankrupt, difficult, Osborne broke the engagement between George and Amelia.

This is a person who is ungrateful, unfaithful, and values social status and money more than gratitude and morality.

Throught out some typical characters, Thakeray show class prejudice in British society:

A stratified society with many different kinds of people belonging to different classes and walks of life.

Each character in the work is a typical image for each class and background such as Miss. Pinkerton, The Crawley House, Osbonre’s family, Sedley’s family, etc.

Society puts on the outside prosperity and wealth, but inside is rottenness, moral degradation, self-interest, hypocrisy, ostentatiousness and deception.

People value status and class; discriminate and despise the lives of the lower classes; pursue power, fame, wealth and status.

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* ARTISTRY IN DEVELOPING CHARACTERS:

- "A novel without hero”: A masterpiece without main character, every character has similar frequency of appearance. Thackeray only focuses on describing Rebecca Sharp, a middle-class girl trying to enter in the upper-class and climb to top of fame. Other figures appear to draw a comprehensive sketch of the society in 19th-century in England.

- Rebecca is centre of the novel. She is engrossed in exhilaration with aristocrats, and putting status and money above even motherhood. All details and characters are associated with Rebecca, contributing to highlight the message of this novel: In a society where money controls humans’ emotions and morals, the society is like a big and diverse fair, where everything can be bought and sold. This depiction paints a picture of rottenness of the ruling classes, of their meanness and ruthlessness.

- People of the upper class must always appear, dress and speak that is followed by a common standard. The more they reveal their wealth, elegance, and stylistic, the more people respect them. For instance:
+ George Osborne is self-identified that: his family is used to living in a society that no money, no talk. It is a society among financiers and whenever they talk, they clatter their money bags.
+ Mr. Sedley, despite of being down and out, he still lived an affluent life, spent money wastefully even when his family was in debt.

● In this ridiculous high society, people try to hold a fatigue position to preserve and cherish it more than any happiness. In that vanity fair, the aristocrats did not miss a single fun. Even in the most difficulty wartime, all they care about is latest trendy dresses, proms and musicals instead of the enemies at the borders.

● Thackeray had built many characters and each of whom contributed to making the picture more vivid and realistic. Though he had drawn an unique personality in each character, they all participated in the race with same pursuit: money. Thackeray directly posed an impeachment to all contemporary British people and to all readers that: Money makes people fight against others, flatter others, but it also makes people contemptuous and hatred others. Money in such a vanity society is so important, so it gradually becomes a measure of human value.

In summary, the first factor to turn "Vanity Fair" into a masterpiece of realist literature is the author's way of building characters. The author does not create a hero or main character, in which each character is a piece of puzzle that forms a vivid sketch of British society. It makes readers have a multi-dimensional view of social life, not one-sided. In addition, the author describes the lives of the characters very naturally so that the characters' inner feelings are gradually revealed through each page of work, meanwhile Thackeray's use of the third person narration increases the realism of the work.

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* REALISM IN "VANITY FAIR"

Society in that vanity world is always changing, gaining and losing in the blink of an eye, no position remains forever. People always look for ways to get money, then they use money to compete for a place in society, buy reputation and respect. But everything could disappear instantly like smoke because society in that vanity world is always changing. Typically Rebecca Sharp, who was from an aristocratic lady, the center of glamor at the ball but she then was expatriated. She traveled from Boulogne to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, then to Tours. She was ignored and abandoned wherever she appeared. Meanwhile, Mr. Sedley, used to be a rich merchant and servant, but no one came at his funeral when his family went bankrupt. In that society, the aristocrats were looking for ways to preserve and improve their honor while others were looking for ways to step into the upper class. Every motive, every thought, every action is made to fulfill that dream.

In this "Vanity Fair", everything can be bought and sold with money, included love and friendship. When people only admire money and fame, all emotions become redundant:
+ Mr. Osborne forbade George Osborne's son from marrying Amelia Sedley because Amelia's family went bankrupt.
+ Jos Sedley neglected his dying father, left Mr. Sedley losing his breath like sand in clock. He considers his beloved one's life worth nothing if that person has no property.

In conclusion, with “Vanity Fair”, William Makepeace Thackeray has a distinctly negative attitude towards brutal capitalist. The author's satirical writings expose everything that is ludicrous, vanity and falsehood of British high society. Behind these vanity things is all the evil: hypocrite, greedy, competitive. The basic value of the work is reflected in the provided resources, informative details, typical portraits of a life in which money reigns. The work is also highlighted with historical colors and is especially successful in the reconstructions of 19th-century British scenes.