Vanity Fair and it's trailblazing femme fatale

By Lake_Frog

I just finished *Vanity Fair* a little over a month ago and I can’t stop thinking about Becky Sharp—she’s kind of wild. People talk a lot about *Gone Girl* and how it finally gives you a femme fatale who doesn’t just get knocked down and embarrassed, but Thackeray was doing something similar way earlier with Becky. She really leans into that whole “dangerous woman ruins men” vibe, like the classic stories and myths where a woman just wrecks everyone around her. But what gets me is how Thackeray handles her story. I feel like the point of the book isn’t “look, here’s a bad woman, don’t be like her.” It feels more like a satire of Victorian society, like Becky can actually do well in a world that’s pretty shallow. And she does—she definitely pays for it though. She pushes people away, she seems to regret things sometimes, but she still keeps winning, even after the big shocking thing that basically flips her from anti-hero to full villain. The part that surprised me most is the structure. Right when she’s finally settled into high society, everything starts falling apart. Rawdon finds out about her cheating, leaves her, and takes the money she’s been building up. Becky disappears, her name gets trashed, and the book shifts to Amelia for a while, so you kind of assume Becky’s done. But then Amelia’s connected to Becky again and you find out what she’s been doing while she’s offstage. Little by little, with all that emotional messing with people—especially Amelia—and getting her way with Jos, Becky slides back into society. By the end, she’s sort of “back,” and her money is actually better than before, and she’s outlived everyone who was ever interested in her. So yeah, I guess I end up torn. On one hand, Becky is impressive in how she survives and adapts. On the other, it’s hard not to see her as dangerous and self-serving. Either way, she sticks in your head, and it feels like her whole situation still says something about people and the messiness of human life.