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
The narrator describes the recent events of Becky’s life since her fight with Rawdon. As Rawdon is preparing to depart for Coventry Island, Becky tries to win favor with Pitt Crawley, but it seems that Lady Jane is preventing her from making any progress. Wenham, Lord Steyne, and Rawdon all agree that for the sake of avoiding a scandal, it’s best to get Becky out of the country.
Although Becky managed to survive rumors about her reputation before, Rawdon caught her in the middle of such a blatant attempt at infidelity that it’s no longer possible to ignore the rumors—particularly since these men also could suffer a blow to their reputations through association with Becky.
Themes
Literary Devices
Becky is so busy managing her own affairs that she doesn’t pay attention to Rawdy, who gets sent to live with Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane. Becky doesn’t keep in touch with Rawdy until about a year later, when Pitt Binkie dies (and so Rawdy becomes the heir to Queen’s Crawley). After the death, Becky writes Rawdy a very affectionate letter.
While Becky sometimes shows signs of compassion or humanity, the one exception is for her son, Rawdy, whom she only sees as a nuisance. Becky’s affectionate letter to Rawdy is clearly an attempt to reconcile with him in case he ever inherits Pitt Crawley’s fortune.
Themes
Before writing that letter, when Becky first leaves England, she goes to the French coast, where she impresses people with exaggerated stories about her life. She begins drinking more and wearing more make-up. She also starts going to church and trying to sing louder than anyone else, but she still struggles to get the respect she wants. As she tries to avoid her past, Becky ends up moving around a lot, often as soon as people learn the real story of her past.
As Becky’s wealth and reputation both begin to decline, she’s increasingly desperate to try to improve her situation. While she has been a successful social climber in the past, her actions here are so desperate that they become absurd, with her efforts to sing the loudest in church being just as ineffective as Mr. Veal’s attempts to sound smart with big words.
Themes
Becky gets bored of trying to please people by being virtuous. She faces further trouble in Paris when she runs into creditors who remember her from 1815, and so she moves on to Brussels, Belgium. At first, Brussels is pleasant; being there reminds of old times, and she enjoys drinking champagne and taking rides in the country. But before long, she starts racking up debts that she can’t pay, and so she continues to wander across Europe.
Becky’s physical movements across Europe represent her metaphorical attempts to escape her past. Ironically, her flight to Brussels temporarily brings her face to face with a happier period from her past life. While Becky enjoys Brussels for a while, she soon must leave, symbolizing how in general she isn’t able to recapture her past successes.
Themes
Get the entire Vanity Fair LitChart as a printable PDF.
Becky earns a reputation at every gambling table in Germany, gambling away money as soon as she gets it. The narrator writes that the less said about this period of Becky’s life, the better. She essentially lives like a “vagabond,” and no one knows how she gets her money—rumor spreads that she might even be a Russian spy.
Becky has always taken bold moves for the chance to attain wealth, and so in many ways, her descent into gambling addiction is a logical evolution for her character. As he has sometimes done in the past, the narrator is deliberately vague about the details of Becky’s life, perhaps to capture how Becky herself can bend the truth, even sometimes when confronted with direct evidence against her (like when Rawdon walked in on her and Lord Steyne).
Themes
As Becky wanders, it happens that she’s in Rome when she receives her salary for half the year. The new income makes her seem rich, and so she gets invited to a fancy ball, which she attends with Major Loder, the man she’s traveling with at the time. At the ball, she and Major Loder go around drinking a lot of champagne. There, she happens to notice Lord Steyne after she recognizes the new scar on his forehead. As soon as Becky sees him again, Major Loder seems vulgar to her.
As usual, Becky spends money as soon as she gets it. But even with her recent windfall, Becky finds she can’t escape her past, as she runs into Lord Steyne. Lord Steyne himself can’t escape his past (as the new scar on his forehead shows). Even though Lord Steyne showed no loyalty to Becky after they were caught back in England, Becky can’t help being impressed by his status.
Themes
Becky locks eyes with Lord Steyne for just a few moments before Major Loder pulls her away. The next day, Becky is out walking and runs into Lord Steyne’s valet. She thinks he has a message for her, but in fact, the valet just warns her that Rome is unhealthy this time of year. He says if she doesn’t leave, she’ll fall ill and die.
Lord Steyne’s messenger seems to strongly imply that Lord Steyne would go so far as to poison Becky if necessary. Given that Rawdon was prepared to die in a duel with Lord Steyne earlier, this shows that reputation is so important to these characters that it literally becomes a matter of life and death.
Themes
Becky doesn’t believe that Lord Steyne would actually assassinate her. But when the valet stresses how angry Lord Steyne is, Becky finally agrees to leave. Lord Steyne will die in 1830 after the Second French Revolution, due to the shock of seeing the monarchy fall. The newspaper will praise Lord Steyne highly, then his heirs will argue intensely about how to interpret his will.
This passage’s aside about the rest of Lord Steyne’s life shows how, for all the respect he commands in life, in death he is as inglorious as most of the other upper-class characters, leaving him mostly remembered for the material wealth he leaves behind for his heirs.
Themes
