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Introduction William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the most famous British novelists of the Victorian Age. He enjoys equal popularity with another world-famous novelist Dickens. The German philosopher Marx once commended Thackeray as “the most outstanding novelist of Britain.” Among his life of around 50 years, Thackeray has created many excellent novels which win a high admiration all over the world. For example, Barry Lyndon , Dr. Birch and His Young Friends , The Great Hoggarty Diamond , The Adventures of Philip and so on.
In his early novels, a vivid description was given about all kinds of liars and adventurers in the upper class. And some satiric novels aimed at the behavior of crime in his era were composed. What made him on the scroll of fame is his novel masterpieces -- Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair was published in installments from the year of 1847. And the novel revealed many kinds of phenomena related to snobbery, speculation and desire for money from a deep and profound vision. Via the sarcastic style of writing, Thackeray painted an authentic picture for all of us, which told the true living states and the intrigues in interpersonal relationship from 1810 to 1820. It exposed the “dirty side” of the upper class in British via the complex plot arrangement and vivid psychological description. With the baronial structure, the sarcastic style of writing has been showed totally in Vanity Fair. This novel is so successful and it means a lot in the history of British literature. In fact, it is fair to say that it makes a difference among the literature of the world.
In this novel, Thackeray creates a classic role named Becky Sharp, a daughter of a poor painter who never gets any achievement in his career. And her mother is a dissolute French woman who makes a living by dancing in pubs. Sharp grows up with the taste of hard life under the reason of poor family and indifferent parents. But she never be defeated by what her life is truly like. On the contrary, she has high self-esteem and firm ambition to change her life. When she was eight years old, her mother passed away, leaving young Sharp with her alcoholic father. She has never experienced even one day full of pleasure and happiness which are possessed by most of the children. Because of the economic burden of running a family, young Sharp has to shoulder the heavy burden on her own. During her young age, she has experienced an extremely miserable life that would never be experienced by many people. Coming from the lowest part of society, Sharp relies on her firm will and unremitting efforts to change her identity. She gets the freedom and rights that are impossible for most women at her time. Meanwhile, what she gets proves that women can have their own dream and achieve what they pursue or dream for like what men do. That is what is exactly stressed in feminism. Although she was born in such an exceptional hardship, she pursues her aims actively and finally makes her dream come true under the oppression of the patriarchal ideologies. She makes a proper plan about her own life and tries to be independent in economy, challenging the authority of the patriarchal ideologies courageously.
Many people think that Becky is definitely an example of contemptible social - climber, selfish, money-grabbing, snobbery and foul. She is immoral or even amoral. What’s more, some of her behavior and thought are morally indefensible; she often uses her charm to control other people; she steals, lies, cheats, and even betrays Amelia, and she maybe even commits a murder. But this paper thinks that Sharp is a real heroine in the novel. She is an admirable, brave, extraordinary and ambitious woman. She is born for Vanity Fair. Compared with the traditional women, she is independent, confident and courageous and she has the courage of adventure and rebellious spirit, pursuing equality between men and women and full of female consciousness. This image can be acknowledged as a symbol of the rise of the feminism in Victorian time, a challenge to the negative position of traditional women.