The Pursuit of “Love”

How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer!

This quotation from Chapter XVIII, “Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought,” shares Amelia’s immediate thoughts after her engagement is broken and her father orders her to return all the letters and trinkets that George has ever sent her. The words reveal an almost subconscious understanding that George is not a constant lover. At the same time that Amelia struggles with the idea of giving up her mementos of George, a part of her recognizes her doubts and suspicions regarding George and his love for her. Why else, in the midst of her heartache, would she acknowledge that George’s letters are cold or short or express his selfishness? In these letters, Amelia has caught a glimpse of the real George, not the fantasy young man to whom she has long been promised. Yet she insists on seeing warmth where there is none and makes excuses for George. Amelia will have momentary flashes of insight like this over the next few decades, but she always manages to successfully suppress her intuition.

It was his counsel had brought about this marriage, and all that was to ensue from it. And why was it? Because he loved her so much that he could not bear to see her unhappy: or because his own sufferings of suspense were so unendurable that he was glad to crush them at once—…

In Chapter XXIV, “In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible,” Dobbin visits Mr. Osborne to attempt to reconcile George and George’s father, but feeling a sense of guilt at bringing about George and Amelia’s marriage, Dobbin reflects on his impetus for doing so. Here, readers obtain a look at Dobbin’s inner thoughts regarding the situation. He realizes that while he has been telling himself that he played a role in the union for Amelia’s benefit, as he feared that she might die from heartache, at the same time, he acknowledges another possibility. Dobbin has been hopelessly in love with Amelia since he first laid eyes on her. He has put Amelia on a pedestal, believing her to be kind, sweet, and all things good. Dobbin truly doesn’t think he is worthy of Amelia, but he also knows that he hasn’t the strength to change his feelings for her. In a strange attempt to preserve his mental and emotional well-being, Dobbin chooses to make Amelia unavailable to him. If Amelia remained unmarried, Dobbin knows he would allow himself to hope for a future with her, a future that would never happen, and his pain would be unending.

I know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection, and cherish a fancy, but it can’t feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you.

These words, which Dobbin utters to Amelia in Chapter LXVI, “Amantium Irae,” reflect the end of his long love for Amelia. She has just told him that she would never forgive him for alluding to the flirtation between George and Becky, which causes Dobbin to perceive Amelia’s true character. Amelia’s commitment to blindly staying true to fantasy, no matter the cost, makes Dobbin realize she is not worthy of his love. Dobbin finally recognizes his worth and his choosing to release himself from his desire for Amelia reveals his self-respect. He has spent close to two decades loving Amelia with no expectation of being loved in return. Instead, Dobbin has always remained her protector, benefactor, and friend. Amelia, however, is so wrapped up in her fantasies of George that keeping George’s memory pristine is more important to her than the genuine affection that Dobbin offers in real life. Dobbin is done wasting his life and his heart on Amelia.

Vain Self-Interest as a Base Motivation

I think it is quite as well for our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are parted. … But my kind reader will please to remember that this history has ‘Vanity Fair’ for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.

In Chapter VIII, “Private and Confidential,” after sharing Becky’s letter to Amelia describing life at Queen’s Crawley, the narrator makes clear just what kind of place Vanity Fair is: a place filled with deceitful and prideful people seeking to promote their own self-interest. In Becky’s attempts to wed Jos to better her circumstances, Becky has already engaged in the type of dishonest behavior that people in Vanity Fair routinely undertake. In her letter, Becky mocks the Crawley family mercilessly, pointing out their foibles and weaknesses. While it is true that Sir Pitt Crawley, despite his title, appears as an uncouth, cheap ill-mannered man, hardly the image of a noble aristocrat, Becky also makes fun of Pitt Crawley for being overly pious and implies that he is a bore. The narrator thus uses this letter to prove his point that Becky belongs in Vanity Fair but Amelia does not. Becky’s future actions, lies, and behaviors will uphold and even further illuminate the narrator’s opinion.

Oh, Vanity Fair—Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery lass—Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles—but a title and a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness in Vanity Fair[.]

In Chapter IX, “Family Portraits,” the narrator describes the unsavory history of the marriage between Sir Pitt Crawley and his second and much younger wife. Each member of this marriage has a particular vice. Sir Pitt married Rose Dawson, the daughter of an ironmonger, merely for her beauty. Rose, on the other hand, gave up a future in which she would have been loved but poor for a future filled with riches but in which she is forever lonely, completely ignored, and painfully miserable. Only Sir Pitt’s money and position could allow a man as unpleasant as he is to win Rose’s hand in marriage. At the same time, Rose traded her most valuable possession, her looks, for the trappings and riches of the aristocracy. These choices, the narrator maintains, are the conscious choices of Vanity Fair, which values money, status, and appearance over all else, and the individual choices that lead to the Crawleys’ marriage support the narrator’s claim.

I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man’s moral senses—the very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened at all. We grieve at being found out and at the idea of shame or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makes very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

The narrator writes these words in Chapter XLII, “Which Treats of the Osborne Family,” as part of an exploration of human responses found among those men and women who populate Vanity Fair. At times, many of the characters in the novel seem to lack the ability to feel any moral compunction over their poor treatment of others. Here, the narrator explains that while these characters do feel shame or fear punishment, they do not experience such feelings for the same reason a virtuous person would. Among the residents of Vanity Fair, such negative emotions result from shame or fear of being discovered doing the wrong thing, not doing the wrong thing in the first place. People like Becky and Lord Steyne are inherently selfish, seeing every event through a lens that reveals how it impacts them. Like others in Vanity Fair, they don’t mind having low virtue or morals, but they do care a great deal about how they are perceived, so they feel bad only when they are caught.

The True Meaning of “Gentleman” and “Lady”

I’m a gentleman though I am your son, sir,’ George answered haughtily. ‘Any communications which you have to make to me, or any orders which you may please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of language which I am accustomed to hear.

In Chapter XXI, “A Quarrel About an Heiress,” George and his father begin to argue over George’s insistence on talking about Amelia in front of Miss Swartz, but instead, they start arguing about which of them is the better man. As Mr. Osborne holds ultimate power, the power of the purse strings, and as he has just threatened to cut George off financially, George, with these words, attempts to gain the upper hand by asserting social dominance over his father with the implication that he, George, is a gentleman despite being Mr. Osborne’s son. Mr. Osborne is a wealthy, self-made man. He has deliberately brought up his son to be a gentleman to fulfill his own ambitions for greater social status. Neither of these men seems to be acting the part of a gentleman. Mr. Osborne uses money to bend his son to his will, and George uses his privileged upbringing to prove his superiority over his father. Of course, neither is truly a gentleman.

‘It isn’t difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,’ Rebecca thought. ‘I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.’

Becky thinks this to herself in Chapter XLI, “In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors,” on her first trip back to Queen’s Crawley since young Pitt has inherited the estate, and her thoughts reveal that she believes being a lady means being a good woman. In this rare moment of introspection, Becky ponders what she could have been if she had come from a different background. As she lists off the activities that she would engage in as a “good woman,” none of which seem highly desirable or even interesting, it becomes clear that for Becky, being a good woman is synonymous with being a dull woman, like her sister-in-law Lady Jane. Even if Becky were to acquire 5,000 pounds a year, it is hard to imagine she would ever be content with leading a simple county life. This understanding may leave readers wondering if Becky would ever settle down and stop aspiring for more if she acquired the money she seeks.

He would make a gentleman of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding little Georgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament-man,—a Baronet, perhaps.

This quote, shared in Chapter LVI, “Georgy Is Made a Gentleman," reflects Mr. Osborne’s thoughts and expresses one of the reasons why he wants Georgy to come live with him. Mr. Osborne seeks to recreate the circumstances of George’s upbringing, but this time with superior results. George too was provided a good education, but Mr. Osborne intends for Georgy to go to college and then continue his rise upward. Mr. Osborne clearly hasn’t learned any lessons from his experiences with George or come to question what exactly a gentleman is. He still believes that a gentleman is defined by his high social status, wealth, and power, maybe a title. His ignorance or refusal to see where things went awry in the past with George will only lead him to repeat the same mistakes. If Mr. Osborne stays on this path, he will turn Georgy, already spoiled by his mother, into an insufferable, self-centered adult, just like his father was. George may have been a gentleman by education and social class, but he was no gentleman by behavior. 

Which of us can point out many such [gentlemen] in his circle—men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated in its degree; whose want of meanness makes them simple; who can look the world honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small?

In Chapter LXII, “Am Rhein," while discussing Amelia’s and Dobbin’s time in Germany, the narrator provides his own opinion of the qualities that make a man a true gentleman. Here, according to the narrator, being a true gentleman is not a reflection of birth, status, or money but rather of virtue and character. The narrator notes one man, Dobbin, whom he considers a gentleman and describes Dobbin as just, honest, humble, pure, warm, and smart. These qualities are internal and intrinsic to a person. Nothing on the narrator’s list can be purchased, stolen, or procured, and merely being born into a wealthy or an aristocratic family, like the cruel Lord Steyne, is not sufficient. While a person might learn how to embrace such inner qualities, for the most part, one is born with them. No education can truly alter a person’s inner qualities. The narrator thus democratizes the concept of being a gentleman because, using the narrator’s definition, any man, even one born to a grocer, can become a gentleman if he has the appropriate morality, integrity, and demeanor.

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