Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Vanity Fair, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed and Ambition
Vanity
Social Class and Character
Gender
Inheritance and Family Life
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Osborne is sure that he can last long enough for George’s resolve to break. Later, on a cold rainy day in April, George is in a coffee-room preparing to get married, and Dobbin is there with him. George admits he couldn’t sleep the previous night. They head over to the church where Jos tells George he’s five minutes late.
Like Becky before him, George wants to get married quickly before the older adults around him have a chance to stop him. Also like Becky, he doesn’t have a plan for what do next. The novel explores how marriages, particularly with the implications they have for inheritance, can lead to conflict between generations.
Themes
Amelia wears a brown silk dress with a white veil that Jos gave her and a gold watch and chain that Dobbin gave her. Mrs. Sedley cries a lot in her pew at the church, and Mr. Sedley doesn’t attend. The church is mostly empty, so when it gets to the point in the ceremony where George says, “I will,” his words echo through the whole church. Afterward, George and Amelia sign their registry, and George thanks Dobbin for all his help. After that, Jos invites Dobbin to go out feasting, but he isn’t in the mood.
Queen Victoria married in 1840 (a couple decades after the events of the novel, but just a few years before the novel was written) and famously popularized the white dress as a status symbol for wealthy brides. Although Amelia’s brown dress wouldn’t have necessarily been uncommon at the time, it still reflects her humble circumstances and unshowy personality. Mr. Sedley doesn’t show up at his daughter’s wedding because he’s still angry about the first time George rejected her, and Mr. Osborne wasn’t even invited.
Themes
Ten days after the wedding, Jos, George, and Rawdon are walking near Brighton. They talk about various young women in town, then they talk about how to spend time while Amelia and Becky are away on a carriage ride. As the men are walking, they happen to run into the carriage that the women are riding in. George and Amelia are in Brighton on their honeymoon, and Jos, Rawdon, and Becky are also taking a vacation. From then on, the two couples begin spending time together, since they had so much in common.
Just 10 days after getting married, the men are acting like bachelors again, particularly when they all get together away from their wives. The time in Brighton is a literal honeymoon period, and it is also a metaphorical honeymoon period, and George, Amelia, Becky, and Rawdon all have yet to face the consequences of their somewhat rash decisions to get married without the approval of some of their relatives.
Themes
Rawdon tells the group about how shortly after his marriage, Becky went through his accounts and started keeping track of all his debts. During the early days of his marriage, he manages to temporarily solve his money problems by winning several billiards matches against George. One day in Brighton, as the men are walking around, they happen to spot Dobbin, who had promised to visit, too, but was delayed. Dobbin looks unusually pale. He says he just saw Mr. Osborne. More importantly, however, Dobbin just learned that he, George, and the rest of the army must all head to Belgium within the week.
And so, Chapter XXII ends with another one of the most important cliffhangers in the novel, creating suspense for early readers who had to wait until the next installment. The news that George, Rawdon, and Dobbin will soon have to go off to war abruptly ends the honeymoon phase in Brighton, bringing uncertainty and possibly danger into the characters’ lives. The passage reveals how, while it might seem at times like these wealthy characters can outrun their problems forever, some problems are too big to outrun.
Themes
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