Vanity Fair

Set against the backdrop of Napoleonic wars Thackeray’s ‘ Vanity Fair’ follows the contrasting fortunes of two young women Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley who venture out into the world together but whose lives take very different paths. The sensitive and naïve Amelia begins with every social advantage and the prospect of a good marriage but war and unexpected drastic decline in her family’s circumstances thwart all her hopes and dreams; while Becky a drawing master’s daughter scorned for her lack of money and breeding uses all her wits charm and considerable sex appeal to escape her drab destiny as a governess. She embarks on a compaign to launch herself into society marries Rawdon Crawley an aristocratic rake on a impulse and begins a giddy social whirl on ‘nothing a year’ and a mountain of debt. Replete with excellent characterizations and hilarious dialogues Thackeray’s novel is a richly entertaining satire of upper-middle-class London life that asks the reader “Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or having it is satisfied?”.