Previous
Personification
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Amelia v. Becky:
In Chapter 1, Thackeray introduces the reader to the two main characters of his novel: Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. When introducing Amelia, he uses a combination of hyperbole and satire to describe her and establish her as a foil to Becky:
But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was one of the best and dearest creatures that ever lived; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion, so guileless and good-natured a person.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Sir Pitt:
In Chapter 7, Thackeray paints a portrait of Sir Pitt Crawley and his crumbling neighborhood of Queen's Crawley, London. In a novel full of characters of various degrees of social refinement, Sir Pitt stands out for his utter lack of artifice—and Thackeray wastes no time satirizing the elderly aristocrats rough edges:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley’s qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her good night. “You’ll sleep with Tinker tonight,” he said; “It’s a big bed, and there’s room for two. Lady Crawley died in it. Good night.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Her Hero Himself:
In Chapter 18, Amelia's world threatens to collapse around her when her family is ruined at the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars. Amelia's husband, George, driven by his own greed, refuses to empathize with her predicament—a twist that Thackeray takes as an opportunity to satirize the uneven power dynamics of 19th-century marriage through verbal irony and hyperbole:
Unlock with LitCharts A+To whom could the poor little martyr tell these daily struggles and tortures? Her hero himself only half understood her. She did not dare to own that the man she loved was her inferior; or to feel that she had given her heart away too soon. Given once, the pure bashful maiden was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too weak, too much woman to recall it.
Related Themes:
Chapter 34
Explanation and Analysis—Parlez-vous anglais?:
In Chapter 34, Becky and Rawdon Crawley enjoy a lovely winter in Paris: it is 1815, and Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo—and Becky has made a fortune selling her horses to Jos. Always on the lookout for a way to advance her social standing, Becky tells her newfound acquaintances in Paris that Rawdon and she are in line to inherit the fortune of Miss Crawley, Rawdon's aunt. In a satirical sequence that pokes further fun at the conceitedness of European aristocracy, Thackeray recounts Miss Crawley's ferocious attempt to expose Becky:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Too much shaken to compose a letter in the French language in reply to that of her correspondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue, repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether, and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful and dangerous person. But as Madame the Duchess of X—had only been twenty years in England, she did not understand a single word of the language, and contented herself by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at their next meeting, that she had received a charming letter from that chère Mees […]
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dinner with James:
In Chapter 34, Miss Crawley invites her nephew, James Crawley, to dinner with Lady Jane and Pitt Crowley. James is a young Oxford student, awkward and a bit brash, and Thackeray stuffs his dialogue with a combination of dialect and allusion in order to satirize his behavior:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Come, come,” said James, putting his hand to his nose and winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, “no jokes, old boy; no trying it out on me. You want to trot me out, but it’s a no go. In vino veritas, old boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hay? I wish my aunt would send down some of this to the governor; it’s a precious good tap.”
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Wine-Dark Brawl:
At dinner in Chapter 34, James Crawley makes a fool of himself as he guzzles wine and talks about his time at Oxford. As he struggles to secure his masculinity, he betrays his affinity for blood sports—which Thackeray emphasizes through the use of blood and red imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Blood’s the word,” said James, gulping the ruby fluid down. “Nothing like blood, Sir, in hosses, dawgs, and men. Why only last term, just before I was rusticated, that is, just before I had the measles, ha, ha,—there was me and… Bob Ringwood, Lord Cinqbar’s son, having our beer at the Bell at Blenheim, when the Banbury bargeman offered to fight either of us for a bowl of punch. […] Bob had his coat off at once… he polished him off in four rounds easy. Gad, how he did drop, Sir, and what was it? Blood, Sir, all blood."
Related Themes:
Chapter 46
Explanation and Analysis—The Oyster Kiss:
Vanity Fair contains a wide variety of vivid, often hilarious descriptions of satirically vapid upper class conversation. In Chapter 46, that conversation reaches new lows as a Mrs. Frederick Bullock drones on about her family—and then bids adieu with a horrific kiss that Thackeray enhances using simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+My darling Frederick must positively be an eldest son; and – and do ask papa to bring us back his account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn’t look well, his going to Stumpy & Rowdy’s.’ After which kind of speeches, in which fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an oyster – Mrs Frederick Bullock would gather her starched nurselings, and simper back into her carriage.
Related Themes:
Chapter 48
Explanation and Analysis—The Royal Laundromat:
Thackeray opens Chapter 48, in which Becky at last gains an audience with the king, with a lengthy simile that describes the significance of such an event in the life of an upper-class woman:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[…] we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum [for virtue], until she has […] been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a lady whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence, and issues from it free from all taint.
Related Themes:
