Showing results for "Thackeray" in World Literature

Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.

Best known today for his comic masterpiece, Vanity Fair, W. M. Thackeray was regarded in his time as the only rival to his contemporary, Charles Dickens. This collection includes a selection of his finest satirical fiction, as well as two fascinating programmes exploring his life and writings.

Vanity Fair centers on the young Becky Sharp and her dear friend Amelia Sedley during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Rebecca Sharp is the daughter of an art teacher and a French dancer, being ambitious, intelligent, and strong willed in order to get what she wants out of society. She is often touted as amoral and an anti-heroine. Alternately, her friend Amelia is kind, good natured, and born into wealth. The interwoven fortunes of the two women play out among a backdrop of social skirmishes and human afflictions of pride and ego.

Thackeray, à travers son personnage domestique, fustige avec ironie la société britannique de son temps, et en particulier l'aristocratie de naissance, classe supérieure souvent trop désargentée pour tenir son rang par des moyens honnêtes, mais toujours adulée par l'homme du peuple. Vanité, cupidité et snobisme sont les causes principales des maux qui s'abattent sur les personnages, lesquels, dans leur dégénérescente confusion, perdent toute conscience des valeurs morales.

Vanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I had 5000 pounds a year."