WILLIAM M.

THACKERAY
(1811-1863)

With W. M. Thackeray's fiction the realism of the Victorian Age gains in comic
invention, scathing irony and subtle psychological observation, elements which compose
an original, panoramic view of life.1

William Makepeace Thackeray (born in 1811, in Calcutta, India — died in

1863, London) is a Victorian novelist whose reputation rests chiefly on Vanity Fair
(1847–48), a novel of the Napoleonic period in England, and The History of Henry
Esmond, Esq. (1852), set in the early 18th century.
He was born of Anglo-Indian parents and came to London after his father’s death.
He was given the “education of a gentleman” at private boarding schools, where he
suffered abuses that he would relate later on. He also went to Cambridge, Trinity College,
but left after two years with no degree and began his travelling on the Continent, up to the
point when the money left by his father as inheritance was lost and he had to work (i.e.
write) for money. He began to enjoy fame as a writer and he even went to America to
popularize his writings, as Dickens also did. He died suddenly from the bursting of a
blood vessel in the brain on December 24, 1863.

VANITY FAIR

Vanity Fair was published serially in monthly installments from 1847 to 1848
and in book form in 1848. The novelist’s previous writings had been published either
unsigned or under pseudonyms, Vanity Fair being the first work he published under his
own name. The novel takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human

1
Galea, p. 89

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corruption in John Bunyan’s 17th-century allegory Pilgrim’s Progress2. Subtitled A
Novel Without a Hero, Vanity Fair metaphorically represents the human condition; the
book is a populated panorama of manners and human frailties.
The narrative consists of several plots and the relation between them offers an
authentic picture of the ways and customs of the British aristocracy and middle classes in
the first decade of the 19th century. In the preface to the novel we find the idea that the
story is “brilliantly illuminated by the author’s own candles”. And this is what he does,
i.e. he talks to the readers on the basis of the relation established between the readers and
the serial writer.
In the preface to the novel Thackeray explains the role of the omniscient narrator,
drawing a comparison between the actors and the manager of a performance. Similarly,
the author-narrator seems to be an all-pervasive presence that turns a story into a plot
according to his own interpretation, and lighting it with his candles. What is very
important is that Thackeray creates a novel and makes statements about that novel: in the
sixth chapter, he comments on the multiple ways in which he could have chosen to create
his novel, proving, at the same time, a general knowledge of the trends of the novel up to
his time: the domestic novel, the sentimental, the gothic, the realistic.
The novel deals with the lives of two main female characters, the ambitious,
essentially amoral Rebecca (Becky) Sharp and the well-born, passive Amelia Sedley,
from the day they leave Miss Pinkerton’s Academy up to the end when, after a series of
misfortunate events, they join hands again. The adventuress Becky is the novel’s central
character and the person around whom all the actors revolve. Amelia marries George
Osborne, but George, just before he is killed at the Battle of Waterloo, is ready to desert
his young wife for Becky, who has fought her way up through society to marriage with
Rawdon Crawley, a young officer from an aristocratic family. The centre of the novel is
the Waterloo battle, which is not, however, directly presented as there is little space for
such historical events in the plot of Vanity Fair. The author merely offers glimpses of the
destruction caused by the war: wounded soldiers, death, rumours etc. Crawley,
disillusioned, finally leaves Becky, and in the end virtue apparently triumphs when

2
A religious allegory of the individual’s pilgrimage through life.

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Amelia marries her lifelong admirer, Captain William Dobbin, and Becky settles down to
genteel living and charitable works.
After the publication of this novel, which was well-received by the English
readers in spite of its cynicism, Thackeray became famous, celebrated and sought after by
the fashionable circles in London. It presents the life of the individual ironically engulfed
by the stronger forces of history. At the beginning of the novel, history is somewhat left
far away and the presence of the war is only remotely felt, only to draw nearer and nearer
as the book progresses.
The title of the novel reveals to us the main theme of the work, i.e. vanity. Almost
every character in this book is vain. They make false boasts to better their image; they are
obsessively concerned about their physical attractiveness and social standing, or view
money as the only means of expressing their worth. Joseph Sedley, Amelia’s brother,
invents stories of bravery in India to impress Becky and later pretends he was at
Waterloo. George Osborne is vain about his looks, and Becky relishes the attentions of
men and is desperate to appear to have money, even if it means ruining other people’s
lives to obtain it.
Connected to the above, the subject of money is also present throughout the book.
The people with money are portrayed as manipulative, repulsive characters. John
Osborne uses his money to buy Amelia’s child and Miss Crawley is a spiteful person,
using her money and position to influence someone’s inheritance. The people who don’t
have money, one the other hand, are always in debt and sometimes go to prison.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, the third daughter of the Reverend Patrick
Brontë and his wife, Maria. Her brother, Patrick Branwell, was born in 1817, and her
sisters Emily and Anne in 1818 and 1820. As sisters and authors, Charlotte, Emily and
Anne gave each other moral support, shared creative ideas and proof-read one another’s
work. As the oldest of the Brontë authors, Charlotte approached her writing career (as a

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poet and as a writer) as a means to financial independence and to help support her
siblings.

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre opens with Jane, an orphaned, isolated ten-year-
old, living with a family that dislikes her because she is poor, the Reeds. After
confronting the Reed children , she is sent off to the Lowood School, where she continues
to suffer privations, but befriends Helen Burns, who upholds a doctrine of Christian
forgiveness and tolerance. Despite her security at Lowood, Jane is dissatisfied and yearns
for new adventures. She accepts a position as governess at Thornfield Manor and is
responsible for teaching a vivacious French girl named Adèle. After much waiting, Jane
finally meets her employer, Edward Rochester, a detached man who seems to have a dark
past. Although Mr. Rochester is not handsome in the traditional sense, Jane feels an
immediate attraction to him based on their intellectual communion. She falls in love with
him and he eventually asks her to marry him. The wedding ceremony is interrupted by a
solicitor, from the community, Mason, who reveals that Rochester already has a wife:
Mason’s sister, Bertha, who is kept in the attic in Thornfield. Rochester confesses to Jane
that in his youth he needed to marry the wealthy Bertha for money, but was unaware of
her family’s history of madness. Despite his best efforts to help her, Bertha eventually
descended into a state of complete madness that only her imprisonment could control.
Jane still loves Mr. Rochester, but she cannot allow herself to become his mistress: she
leaves Thornfield, she is helped by the Rivers (St. John, Diana and Mary) family and she
finds a job as a teacher. She also inherits a large sum of money from her uncle, John
Eyre, and she splits it with the Rivers, who are in fact her cousins. St. John repeatedly
asks her to marry him and leave with him to India on a missionary work, but she refuses.
She returns to Thornfield, only to find it burnt down by Bertha, and she finds Rochester,
who had lost his eyesight and a hand in the fire, at a nearby estate. The two are reunited
and soon get married. At the end of the novel, Jane informs the readers that she and Mr.
Rochester have been married for ten years, and Mr. Rochester regained sight in one of his
eyes in time to see the birth of his first son. By the end of the novel, Jane is a strong,
independent woman, who has managed to find a balance between passion and reason.

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 Jane Eyre as a bildungsroman - The main quest in Jane Eyre is Jane’s search for
family, for a sense of belonging and love. However, this search is constantly tempered by
Jane’s need for independence. She begins the novel as an unloved orphan who is almost
obsessed with finding love as a way to establish her own identity and achieve happiness.
She does not feel as though she has found her true family until she falls in love with Mr.
Rochester at Thornfield. However, she is unable to accept Mr. Rochester’s first marriage
proposal because she realizes that their marriage - one based on unequal social standing -
would compromise her autonomy. Jane similarly denies St. John’s marriage proposal, as
it would be one of duty, not of passion. Only when she gains financial and emotional
autonomy, after having received her inheritance and the familial love of her cousins, can
Jane accept Rochester's offer. In fact, the blinded Rochester is more dependent on her (at
least until he regains his sight). Within her marriage to Rochester, Jane finally feels
completely liberated, bringing her dual quests for family and independence to a satisfying
conclusion.
Jane Eyre as a Gothic novel: Gothic novels focus on the mysterious; take place in
dark, sometimes exotic, settings (often houses that appear to be haunted); but still entail
an element of romance. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, and in a
sense Jane and the madwoman in Rochester’s attic are doubles — two wives, one sane
and the other insane. Brontë uses many elements of the Gothic literary tradition to create
a sense of suspense and drama in the novel. First of all, she employs Gothic techniques in
order to set the stage for the narrative. The majority of the events in the novel take place
within a gloomy mansion (Thornfield Manor) with secret chambers and a mysterious
demonic laugh belonging to the Madwoman in the Attic. Brontë also evokes a sense of
the supernatural, incorporating terrifying ghosts of dead characters (Mr. Reed). More
importantly, however, Brontë uses the Gothic stereotype of the Byronic hero to formulate
the primary conflict of the text. Brooding and tortured, while simultaneously passionate
and charismatic, Mr. Rochester is the focal point of the passionate romance in the novel
and ultimately directs Jane’s behaviour beginning at her time at Thornfield. At the same
time, his dark past and unhappy marriage to Bertha Mason set the stage for the dramatic
fire at Thornfield.

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Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,

But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall? “Life”-Currer Bell,