Editing Vanity Fair (novel) (section)

===Analysis===
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The novel is considered a classic of English literature, though some critics claim that it has structural problems; Thackeray sometimes lost track of the huge scope of his work, mixing up characters' names and minor plot details. The number of allusions and references it contains can make it difficult for modern readers to follow.

The subtitle, ''A Novel without a Hero'', refers to the characters all being flawed to a greater or lesser degree; even the most sympathetic have weaknesses, for example Captain Dobbin, who is prone to [[vanity]] and [[melancholia|melancholy]]. The human weaknesses Thackeray illustrates are mostly to do with [[greed (deadly sin)|greed]], [[laziness|idleness]], and [[snob]]bery, and the scheming, [[lie|deceit]] and [[hypocrisy]] which mask them. None of the characters is wholly evil, although Becky's manipulative, amoral tendencies make her come pretty close. However, even Becky, who is amoral and cunning, is thrown on her own resources by poverty and its stigma. (She is the orphaned daughter of a poor artist and an opera dancer.) Thackeray's tendency to highlight faults in all of his characters displays his desire for a greater level of [[Literary realism|realism]] in his fiction compared to the rather unlikely or idealised people in many contemporary novels.

The novel is a satire of society as a whole, characterised by hypocrisy and [[opportunism]], but it is not necessarily a reforming novel; there is no clear suggestion that social or political changes or greater piety and [[Victorian morality|moral reformism]] could improve the nature of society. It thus paints a fairly bleak view of the human condition. This bleak portrait is continued with Thackeray's own role as an [[omniscient narrator]], one of the writers best known for using the technique. He continually offers asides about his characters and compares them to actors and puppets, but his cheek goes even as far as his readers, accusing all who may be interested in such "Vanity Fairs" as being either "of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood".<ref>{{citation |title=Vanity Fair |url=https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848 |page=[https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848#page/n15/mode/2up viii] |year=1848 }}.</ref> As [[Lord David Cecil]] remarked, "Thackeray liked people, and for the most part he thought them well-intentioned. But he also saw very clearly that they were all in some degree weak and vain, self-absorbed and self-deceived."<ref>{{citation |last=Cecil |first=David |author-link=Lord David Cecil |title=Early Victorian Novelists |publisher=Constable |year=1934 |page=69}}.</ref> Amelia begins as a warm-hearted and friendly girl, though sentimental and naive, but by the story's end she is portrayed as vacuous and shallow. Dobbin appears first as loyal and magnanimous, if unaware of his own worth; by the end of the story he is presented as a tragic fool, a prisoner of his own sense of duty who knows he is wasting his gifts on Amelia but is unable to live without her. The novel's increasingly grim outlook can take readers aback, as characters whom the reader at first holds in sympathy are shown to be unworthy of such regard.

The work is often compared to the other great historical novel of the [[Napoleonic Wars]], [[Tolstoy]]'s ''[[War and Peace]]''.{{efn|Examples include Carey's ''Prodigal Genius''<ref>{{cite book |last=Carey |first=John |author-link=John Carey (critic) |title=Thackeray: Prodigal Genius |url=https://archive.org/details/thackerayprodiga0000care |url-access=registration |publisher=Faber |year=1977|isbn=9780571111268 }}</ref> and McAloon's defence of the work in ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]''.<ref>{{citation |last=McAloon |first=Jonathan |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/why-vanity-fair-is-the-greatest-novel-about-waterloo/ |title=Why ''Vanity Fair'' Is the Greatest Novel about Waterloo |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=20 June 2015 }}.</ref>}} While Tolstoy's work has a greater emphasis on the historical detail and the effect the war has upon his protagonists, Thackeray instead uses the conflict as a backdrop to the lives of his characters. The momentous events on the continent do not always have an equally important influence on the behaviours of Thackeray's characters. Rather their faults tend to compound over time. This is in contrast to the redemptive power the conflict has on the characters in ''War and Peace''. For Thackeray, the Napoleonic Wars as a whole can be thought of as one more of the vanities expressed in the title.

A common critical topic is to address various objects in the book and the characters' relationships with them, such as Rebecca's diamonds or the piano Amelia values when she thinks it came from George and dismisses upon learning that Dobbin provided it. [[Marxist criticism|Marxist]] and similar schools of criticism that go farther and see Thackeray condemning [[consumerism]] and capitalism. However, while Thackeray is pointed in his criticism of the commodification of women in the marriage market, his variations on [[Ecclesiastes]]'s "[[all is vanity]]"<ref>{{citation |title=Vanity Fair |year=1848 |url=https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848 |pages=[https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848#page/n529/mode/2up 450] & [https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848#page/n721/mode/2up 624]}}.</ref> are often interpreted as personal rather than institutional. He also has broad sympathy with a measure of comfort and financial and physical "snugness". At one point, the narrator even makes a "robust defense of his lunch":<ref name=thisonegoestoeleven/> "It is all vanity to be sure: but who will not own to liking a little of it? I should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes roast-beef?"<ref>{{citation |title=Vanity Fair |year=1848 |url=https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848 |page=[https://archive.org/stream/VanityFair1848#page/n529/mode/2up 450]}}.</ref>

Despite the clear implications of Thackeray's illustration on the topic, [[John Sutherland (author)|John Sutherland]] has argued against Becky having murdered Jos on the basis of Thackeray's criticism of the "[[Newgate novel]]s" of [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton]] and other authors of Victorian crime fiction.{{efn|The trio of lawyers Becky gets to defend herself from the claims—Burke, Thurtell, and Hayes—are named after prominent murderers of the time, although this may have been a tease or commentary on the legal profession itself.}} Although what Thackeray principally objected to was glorification of a criminal's deeds, his intent may have been to entrap the Victorian reader with their own prejudices and make them think the worst of Becky Sharp even when they have no proof of her actions.<ref>{{cite book |author=Sutherland, John |author-link=John Sutherland (author) |title=Is Heathcliff A Murderer?: Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-century Fiction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996}}</ref>