Vanity Fair is an iconic example of a frame story. The narrator sets up the story as a puppet show put on within a literal "Vanity Fair," writing: "Yes, this is VANITY FAIR: not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas."
As the name suggests, the Vanity Fair is a carnival of human vanities—a collection of sights and sounds that highlight the very many failings of humankind. Thackeray's description of the various scenes of the fair foreshadow a number of themes and plot points of the novel to come. As the narrator notes: "There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business [...]."
Sure enough, Vanity Fair will contain no shortage of each kind of spectacle: there will be plenty of conflict, plenty of horsemanship (and, in Becky's case, horse-peddling), and plenty of damning vignettes of upper class English life intertwined with melancholic explorations of those unfortunate enough to be shut out of the aristocracy. And, topping it all off, there are a series of interlocking love stories recounted through the novel's many chapters, culminating in Dobbin's long-awaited marriage to Amelia and punctuated by no shortage of comedy.
