Becky Sharp’s Commodified Interpersonal Relationships in Vanity Fair

Abstract

Vanity Fair is a masterpiece by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), which is centered on the lives of two young women, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, presenting the life of extravagance and rivalry of the aristocratic bourgeoisie in nineteenth-century England. In the novel, Thackeray ruthlessly exposes the shameless and degenerate nature of the feudal aristocracy and the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie in their pursuit of fame and fortune. During the Victorian period, consumerism prevailed. The circulation of commodities was well developed, and people at that time indulged in the revelry of the material world. As long as capital exists, commodities are bound to be an eternal element in the development of human society. This paper focuses on the female protagonist Becky in Vanity Fair by adopting the methods of literature research and textual analysis, revealing Thackeray’s portrayal of commodified interpersonal relationships in the novelas well as the karmic consequences of such aberrant relationships in order to warn contemporary people on the Fair.