Vanity Fair: Themes | SparkNotes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Ruthless Ambition

At the heart of Vanity Fair is the ambition to acquire social standing, money, love, economic success, sex, and more, even though the actions the characters take in pursuit of their ambitions rarely lead to happiness. Almost all the characters have a driving ambition that puts them at odds with others in some essential way and prevents meaningful relationships. As a consequence, Vanity Fair is not a novel filled with happy people.

Becky, the most ambitious character, strives to attain social standing and money. Nothing matters more to her than rising from her beginnings when, as the daughter of a French dancer and an artist, she was inferior to her wealthier peers. Becky will take on whatever role she deems necessary to advance her purpose, be it the best friend of Amelia or the confidante of Miss Crawley. Becky’s pursuit of her goals also means she is willing to forsake other pleasures that make life worthwhile, like love or friendship. In Vanity Fair, this trait is not limited to Becky. Mr. Osborne, for instance, wants George to marry into nobility and will overlook any conflicts to make that a reality. Only the truly virtuous characters have a far simpler ambition but one that is difficult to obtain: finding happiness and love.

The Pursuit of “Love”

While Vanity Fair is not a romance, the pursuit of love, or what passes as love, drives the narrative. As a novel that centers on female protagonists, domestic matters figure prominently, particularly making a good marriage. Thackeray’s narrator specifically notes that is one of the most important goals of young women and their mothers. In this environment, readers find few representations of love based on genuine affection. Instead, men and women pursue love for various other reasons, such as to further their ambitions, boost their egos or escape reality or simply because they can’t stop themselves.

While marriages have a transactional quality, the partners marry for economic reasons, not love, in the world of Vanity Fair, happy marriages can’t even exist because of the shallow values and selfishness inherent in the society. Instead, love has trade-offs, though they vary from character to character. Becky, for instance, trades her love for money, while Rawdon, to remain with Becky, accepts her terrible behavior toward their son and her dismissive attitude toward him. Thackeray also shows the harmful side of love through the characters of Dobbin and Amelia, both of whom waste close to 20 years of their lives pursuing unrealistic dreams. Love is hard to find among parents and grandparents as well because in this world not even children are deserving of unconditional love. In Vanity Fair, any truly loving familial relationship is an anomaly, not the norm.

Vain Self-Interest as a Base Motivation

In aptly named Vanity Fair, vanity motivates the characters to chase social status, material possessions, more power, or the people who can deliver these. In the world Thackeray depicts, society is made up of vain people acting in vain ways to improve their status. They care little about doing the right thing or even the smart thing. This theme runs through the whole of the novel, for most characters willingly inhabit Vanity Fair. They continually demonstrate how much vanity rules their lives and exerts a constant influence on them. Their need to be seen in a favorable light leads them to make choices that are detrimental in the long run, though these choices may bring them momentary pleasure and pride.

Becky, of course, is one of the stars of Vanity Fair, continually relying on her cleverness and charms to trick and lie to advance her standing. Becky successfully uses her wiles to climb to the top of society, even garnering an introduction to the king. George is another character whose vanity impacts all his decisions. For example, he marries Amelia because she makes him feel better about himself. Even minor characters reflect the faults of vanity because this snobbery permeates all of society, including the valet at the hotel in London, who is ashamed to give Sedley’s address to a coachman. Few characters escape falling into the trap of vanity because few characters have virtue.

The True Meaning of “Gentleman” and “Lady”

One of the key questions that Thackeray explores in Vanity Fair is what it means to be a “gentleman.” In the world of early 1800s England, which is the novel’s setting, aristocrats by birth meet that definition, but Thackeray understands that being a gentleman or a lady has moral connotations as well as social identification. The narrator uses the term “gentleman” to refer to many of the male characters, such as Jos, Mr. Osborne, Mr. Sedley, and Pitt Crawley (both father and son), though these men all have quite different circumstances of birth. So a gentleman is a nobleman, like Lord Steyne or Sir Pitt Crawley, despite their disreputable lifestyles, habits, and acquaintances.

A gentleman can also be a man of education who holds a seat in Parliament—a man who doesn’t have to work for a living, as Mr. Osborne wishes for young Georgy. Or a gentleman can be a man who shows character and virtue. In his three main male characters—Rawdon, George, and Dobbin—Thackeray presents an example of each type of gentleman, though the narrator states that only Dobbin deserves a spot on his list of gentlemen. A similar line of reasoning holds for women. A lady can be an aristocrat by birth or position, one who maintains the proper decorum, or a good and kind woman. Lady Jane embodies all these types in one person.

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