Vanity Fair Chapters LXVI & LXVII Summary & Analysis

Chapters LXVI & LXVII

Summary: CHAPTER LXVI: Amantium Irae

Amelia sympathizes with Becky over losing her child. Becky also casts herself as the innocent victim of Rawdon’s hateful family, claiming she tolerated them for Rawdy’s sake. Dobbin is the only one who realizes Becky is as scheming as ever. He recalls a conversation in which George expressed regret at his illicit relationship with her. Amelia insists that Becky come live with Jos and her. Dobbin begs her and Jos not to do so and brings up Becky’s history with George, upsetting Amelia. That evening Georgy recognizes Becky from the gambling house and agrees not to tell Amelia.

Meanwhile, Dobbin runs into the British minister, who tells him (and the narrator, who is present) all about Becky’s history in London. The next afternoon, Dobbin announces in front of Becky that she is not an appropriate friend for Amelia and Georgy. Becky denies the accusations, and Amelia supports her. Dobbin and Amelia only speak alone for a moment. Amelia says she will never forgive Dobbin for insulting George’s memory. Dobbin brings up his lifetime of devotion and realizes that he has wasted all these years on a woman who was not worthy of him. To Amelia’s shock, Dobbin says goodbye. He leaves that evening.

Summary: CHAPTER LXVII: Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths

Becky shines in her new home, pleasing the family and causing visitors to flock to the house. Amelia mopes and grows peevish. Her only enjoyment is taking walks with Georgy and talking about Dobbin, to whom Georgy continues to write and who can never love Amelia again.

In the summer, the household moves to Ostend, where Becky runs into some disreputable friends who spend a lot of time at the house and try to take advantage of Amelia. Becky takes matters in hand. She tells Amelia she must marry Dobbin to protect herself and Georgy. Amelia murmurs that she could never forget George. Becky explodes. George is nothing compared to Dobbin. George made love to Becky. When Amelia refuses to believe her, Becky reveals the note George gave her in Brussels, asking her to run away with him. Amelia weeps. The narrator thinks she is relieved because George no longer stood in her way. Becky wants to write to Dobbin, but Amelia says she already did. Two days later, Amelia and Georgy watch a steamer come into port. Georgy spies Dobbin with his telescope. They rush to meet the steamer. Amelia and Dobbin reunite. Amelia asks forgiveness, and Dobbin says he will never leave again. They marry, and Georgy finally has a father.

Dobbin quits the service, and the family returns to England, settling near Queen’s Crawley. Lady Jane and Amelia grow close, and Lady Jane is godmother to Amelia and Dobbin’s daughter, Jane. Georgy and Rawdy also become friends and attend college together.

Becky remains on the Continent with Jos. When Amelia learns that Jos has taken out a life insurance policy and is ailing, she sends Dobbin to Brussels to find him. Jos is quite sick and afraid of Becky. Dobbin begs him to return to England or go to India. Jos wants to leave Becky but fears she will kill him if she knows. That was the last time Dobbin saw Jos, who died three months later. All his money was gone except for his life insurance policy. The insurance company hesitates to pay out, suspecting foul play, but Becky’s lawyers force them to do so.

Rawdon dies and then Pitt, and Rawdy inherits the estate. He refuses to see Becky, though he does provide her with an allowance. Becky has returned to England but never comes near Queen’s Crawley. Now wealthy and calling herself Lady Crawley, she attends church and contributes to charity. Amelia and Dobbin meet her at a fair in London one day and dash away.

The puppet play ends.

Analysis: Chapters LXVI & LXVII

In the final two chapters, Becky and Amelia reunite for a brief period, but their friendship is based on Becky’s lies and is unstable. While readers can easily understand why Jos falls for Becky’s manipulations because he has always been a weak man, Amelia’s welcome of Becky is less acceptable. The last time the women met in Brussels, Amelia spoke with uncharacteristic sharpness to Becky, who had repaid kindness and friendship with attempts to steal Amelia’s husband. But Amelia brushes aside the past now because Becky speaks to her as a mother who also lost her child to cruel relatives. Georgy is the most important person in Amelia’s life, more important to her than even George. Although, since she has melded the two to a certain extent, understandably she should fall prey to Becky’s appeals to her maternal side.

When Dobbin fails in his efforts to get Amelia to believe the truth about Becky and George, Amelia is not standing up for Becky but rather for her own long-held delusion about her husband. She is not choosing Becky over Dobbin, but George over Dobbin. Amelia rejects Dobbin’s story because, without evidence, she can do so. Becky shows surprising heart when she becomes the sole person willing to detail for Amelia the truth about George. Part of Becky’s reason for doing so is to protect Amelia from the predatory men that Becky has brought into her household, but part stems from genuine frustration with Amelia’s dogged pursuit of her own fairy tale. Becky knows George was a scoundrel, and she has a genuine and deep respect for Dobbin, as does almost everyone who comes to know him.

After Amelia and Dobbin’s reconciliation, the narrator quickly sums up what happens to the main characters of the story but hints at certain complications and leaves other questions unanswered. Amelia and Dobbin are thrust into a conventional ending: marriage. However, while theirs seems to be a contented marriage, whether it is a happy one is debatable. Never again do readers see Dobbin profess his love for Amelia. Instead, when Dobbin and Amelia reunite, he looks at her with a mixture of sorrow, love, and pity, feelings that hardly describe the passion he once felt for Amelia. His passion had been so strong that it almost killed Dobbin when he thought Amelia was married to another man. The narrator sprinkles many details in these last few pages that could suggest Dobbin no longer loves Amelia, but whatever the feelings they have for each other, one thing is clear: Amelia has not learned anything from her experience of sending Dobbin away and then asking him to come back. She remains constant, unable to do for herself, forced to cling to Dobbin and even Georgy, much like a parasite.

Before putting away the puppets, the narrator also takes a short side trip back to Brussels, where Jos lives in fear of Becky but can’t break away from her. Becky does not appear in this scene, so readers have no way of determining if Jos is speaking rationally or if his health issues are impacting his thinking. Indeed, Jos does contradict himself. For instance, he claims Becky is innocent but also says she is a terrible person and capable of murder. While Jos has shown himself to be a weak man throughout the novel, he chooses to stay in Belgium with Becky instead of returning to England with Dobbin. No explanation is provided for this other than fear. Did Becky really kill Jos? Readers may recall that in the charades party at Gaunt House, she convincingly played Clytemnestra, a woman who murdered her husband. Still, the narrator provides no answers. All readers can know for certain is that while Becky failed in her effort to rise to the height of London society, she still landed in a far position better than where she began.

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