No Angel in Vanit Fair英语论文.doc

No Angel in Vanity Fair Vanity Fair is taken from the town of Vanity in John Bunyan’s famous allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. In this novel, the author William Makepeace Thackeray described men and women just as they were in real life---neither totally good nor totally evil. In this book, the upper middle class life is shown as full of all kinds of vanity, especially “snobbery, duplicity of social-climbers”, and the “weakness of human nature”. Just as the author said, people live without God, without religion, without moral scruples of any kind. Vanity Fair is a work with many characters. However, we can easily see that all stories are about two young women, Becky Sharp and Amelia, who have near relationship but the opposite characteristics. Becky Sharp begins her socially ambitious career due to the friendship with Amelia, who is soft-hearted and sentimental. Becky tries to marry Jos Sedley, Amelia’s brother, a foolish but rich man. Frustrated in this, and reduced to being a governess, she then begins her love with the “mean and avaricious” Sir Pitt Crawhey, but makes the mistakes of marrying his second son, Rawdon, a “gallant but ignorant and dissolute man” who, despite his incapacity, is later made Governor of the unhealthy Coventry Island. Her marriage does not prevent her from pursuing her social ambition. She then becomes the mistress of the aristocratic and degenerate Lord Steyne. Her ambitions are eventually defeated, but she manages to end up as a respected member of the society. Many people may compare Sharp with Jane Eyre: they are born in similar family condition and have similar childhood experience, and both of them know the nature of this society, but they choose different ways to live and challenge the injustice of the world. Though her hard-working, cherishing her self-esteem, Jane wins the love of Rochester; however, Sharp is adept at tricks and deceit, and ends up as a corrupted woman. Respectable as Jane is, her ideal life is not the real life o