Vanity fair

From the very beginning, through the metaphor of the theatre, Thackeray, who is the "Manager of the Performance", reminds his readers that his characters are unreal; he turns directly to the man "who walks through the ex-hibition", that is the reader, and asks him to make himself acquainted with the "Fair", of which he himself is an inhabitant. Thus Thackeray's moral and artistic purpose is to force the reader, during the act of reading, to make comparisons between one world and the other, to bring his knowledge of one to bear on an evaluation of the other, and to break down the barrier between illusion and reality.

Becky Sharp

The interest of readers is chiefly drawn to Becky, whose trying social career becomes finally the triumph of artful hypocrisy. She seems, indeed, a thoroughly original character, and in her varied intercourse with many different char­acters, both men and women, is on the whole wonderfully successful. Her sudden high social triumph, and yet more sudden social fall, are alike temporary, her invincible self-control and knowledge of character, allied with a fearless and unscrupulous mind, enable her to resist and practically overcome nearly all the ill-nature and social jealousy she encounters, although she is poor and almost friendless from the first.

Becky Sharp, whose early life is described as one of mingled hardship, cunning and trickery, is a very striking character. She is the personification of intellect without heart, of the new woman able to face a society which has sunk to the level of a market; her friend Amelia Sedley has heart without intellect and embodies the Victorian model of "the angel of the hearth".