Vanity Fair and Bonfire of the Vanities: Prolegomenon for a Poetics of Modern Realism

Abstract

This paper examines intertextual influences and ties between Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. After an analysis of the problems of intertextuality as applied to complex literary structures, Gerard Genette’s systematisation of intertextual phenomena is concluded to be the most suitable model. The paper focuses on examining parallelisms through contrasting texts directly, as well as placing the findings in a broader context concerning modern realist and realism-inspired novels, otherwise labelled under the term ”Neo-Realism”. The analysis itself focuses on examining intertextuality within the titles, the serial form of both novels and its situational influence on plot and structure. This is followed by an examination of other microstructures (plot devices, narrative voice, and thematic parallelisms) with the aim of understanding the intent and meaning of Wolfe’s alterations to the self-chosen Thackereyan model. Finally, the characteristics, as defined throughout the paper, are reconceptualised through the lens of Wolfe’s explicitly poetic texts. From this perspective, The Bonfire of the Vanities emerges as one of the key novels in modern neorealist prose.