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From the bellowing, we can know the main idea of Sister Carrie, and then comes the introduction of Vanity Fair.
As one of the critical realistic works on the Victorian times, William Thackeray’s reputation was established with the publication of Vanity Fair, the subtitle of which, “A Novel without a Hero”. He completed it when he was 37. The book was published from 1847 to 1848 in serial form without sufficient time for revisions by him (Wang, 2007:23). Its setting is England during and after the Napoleonic Wars, but its panoramic view of folly and vanity is universal. When it appeared as monthly serials, it got rather negative reception from critics as he showed the duplicity of social climbers, the weakness of human nature and the prevailing selfishness which lay behind the charming masks of the socially success(Wang, 2007:23). No matter what kind of comment it got, praise or condemn, as time flies, Vanity Fair stands out prominent in the word literature.
Vanity Fair tells a story about Rebecca Sharp, an orphan, who suffers from poverty, is determined to control her destiny. She is unscrupulous, shrewd and sophisticated beyond her ages. And she takes whatever measures to take part in upper class. She has a good friend Amelia with a contrast characteristic. After she fails to entrap Amelia’s brother as husband, then she becomes the governess in the family of baronet, Sir Pitt Crawly. She has to give up being his wife for she has married Rawdon Crawley for his bright future of inheriting his rich aunt’s property. But at last, she goes on living with Joseph until he dies. She returns to England and lives a grand life with Joseph’s all property.
After reading these two novels, the author of the thesis find a fascinating thing. As we all know, both of these two novels have two leading female characters. The writers of these two novels Theodore Dreiser and William Thackeray all focus on narrating the story around the female characters. The similarities and differences of fate and image astonish me a lot. It is not difficult for us to find something in Carrie similar to Rebecca. To some extent, the air of Carrie is very familiar to us for we can also find the hints in Rebecca.
This paper focuses on analysis of the images and fates of the female characters in two different books from the perspective of the social background and the authors’ attitudes. From these we can better understand the similarities and differences of the images and fates about Carrie and Rebecca. Although there have been many researches about the analysis of images and fates, I will write from the view of the impacts of different societies and authors’ attitudes towards the female characters.
2. Literature review
2.1 Different social background
Sister Carrie has been receiving many critics’ favor since it was first published. People from the press, critics and public opinions denounced it for ten years after it was published. This book was considered as “decadence”. But, from one point, he, as a natural novelist, depicted the real thought of low-down folks and the dark side of the American society according to his own experience and observation. This novel reflects the tense relationship between people who struggle heavily for a living. From another point, to a large extent, Carrie was regarded as an immoral image. Still now, she is a controversial woman.
Sister Carrie was written in America in 1900. The economy boomed just after American Civil War. American dream exerted a lot on people, who rushed into metropolises and chase after money and a luxury life. But American dreams were broken down when people encountered the cruel and harsh reality. From the founding of the U.S through the early nineteenth century, the economy had been primarily agricultural, with the inpidual household, the centre of production. Inpidual families are destroyed. The transition from family-centered economy to industrial order is characterized by managerial capitalism, and it depends on the development of factories. As capitalism blooms, consumers begin to see money as the most important thing. We can see the capitalist society “consumption or keeping money and goods are the ultimate destination of all people” (Eagleton, 1991:10). All the people are potential buyers, and capitalism keeps them unsatisfied. The consume consciousness encouraged people to spend money. The moral standard under this kind of culture was that it was right for wealthy people to buy mansion, luxury fashions and even attract and have pretty women. Just like Carrie, she longs for luxury and wealth. When she finds jobs for living, a wholesale shoe company and a clothing company are her priorities. When she meets Drouet again, she is attracted by the twenty dollar by which she can buy fashion design. She would rather be a honey of Drouet, from which she can just enjoy life full of beautiful clothes and not work. With the increased technology and mechanization of production, the trend of collective and the gap between the rich and poor were huge. People already had lost their own dignity, and their belief had collapsed.