Vanity Fair and other 19th century novels, or What Thackeray does and doesn’t do

I don’t often talk about publishing date and settings, but in this case, it’s interesting. Vanity Fair started to be serialised in 1847 (until 1848), the same year as Jane Eyre (as well as Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey), which means that 1847 had (at least) two important novels in which an employer wanted to marry a governess.

Vanity Fair however was a historical novel, like War and Peace, and set around the same time; on the international scale, it was set during the Napoleonic Wars, and on the national scale, it was during the Regency era, i.e. Jane Austen’s time; the first time Thackeray specified time in the novel was in chapter 18 and it was 1815, the year Emma was published. 

Why are these details interesting? Because you can compare the novels and see what Thackery does or doesn’t do. 

Donald Rayfield points out some similarities between Vanity Fair and War and Peace (here come the spoilers):  

“Like Thackeray, only far more murderous, Tolstoy gets rid of the minx (Becky Sharp or Hélène Kuragina), kills off his handsome hero in a pivotal battle (Captain Osborne at Waterloo or Prince Andrei after Borodino), and chastens his naive heroine (Amelia or Natasha) into learning to love the avuncular older man (William Dobbin or Pierre Bezukhov), and to prize moral over physical beauty. Both novels are about native (English or Russian) values and morals superseding French ones.” (source) 

The most obvious difference between the two novels is that Vanity Fair is more like the Peace of War and Peace: Thackeray doesn’t depict the battles, even though some of his characters go to war. He says: 

“We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our place is with the non-combatants. When the decks are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly.” (Ch.30) 

The development of the war is either summarised by the narrator, or reported by characters as news to other characters. 

Vanity Fair also has a smaller scope: War and Peace revolves around 5 families and has many major characters, whereas the one narrative at the beginning of Vanity Fair is split into two, mainly following Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Some characters are therefore abandoned for long stretches of the story, such as Miss Crawley. 

Vanity Fair also confirms my impression that in the 19th century, British literature had a bit of an obsession with money and inheritance, more than Russian literature did. The themes do appear in Russian works, but Russian writers seem more interested in philosophical ideas, the soul, and/or how to live. I’m generalising and simplifying, of course. 

But if you compare Vanity Fair to Jane Austen’s novels, Thackeray makes you notice the things Austen doesn’t write about.  

First of all is the marriage plot. 

“As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore.” (Ch.26) 

Is that a deliberate dig at Jane Austen for ending all of her novels at the wedding and not following the married couple? Thackeray follows his two couples and depicts their marriages. 

Secondly, whereas servants are more or less invisible in Austen, the first character we see in Vanity Fair, after the curtain’s lifted, is the black servant Sambo, and Thackeray constantly mentions him. Quite prominent in (parts of) the novel are Mrs Beckinsop, the Sedleys’ housekeeper, and Mrs Firkin, Miss Crawley’s maid. On a side note, the jealousy of Mrs Firkin and Miss Briggs (dame de compagnie) over Miss Crawley’s partiality to the governess Becky Sharp reminds me of the rivalry and jealousy of Françoise and Eulalie in Swann’s Way. 

Thirdly, “socially aware” readers may like that Thackeray deliberately mentions other races, and the colonies. 

“Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same periodical.

Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta.

[…]

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and Brummel were the leading bucks of the day…” (Ch.3) 

There is even a scene of the Sedleys introducing Becky Sharp to curry. But how does Joseph Sedley make money and become so rich, especially when he’s such an idiot?—one can’t help asking, as the stupid Joseph keeps telling his “Indian stories” but doesn’t talk about what kind of work he did—does Thackeray leave the reader wondering, or deliberately lead the reader to ask such questions? 

Later on: 

“George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object of vast respect to the Russell Square family. She was reported to have I don't know how many plantations in the West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list. She had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place. The name of the rich West India heiress had been mentioned with applause in the Morning Post.” (Ch.20) 

In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen does allude to the plantation in Antigua, and at some point, also the slave trade, but the references in Vanity Fair are more explicit. 

“"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was rattling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their reunion—rattling away as no other man in the world surely could.

"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left school, must be two or three and twenty. And you should see the hand she writes! Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence, she put pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and Saint James's, Saint Jams."

"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour boarder," Emmy said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy.

"The very name," George said. "Her father was a German Jew—a slave-owner they say—connected with the Cannibal Islands in some way or other. He died last year, and Miss Pinkerton has finished her education..."” (ibid.) 

George Osborne talks about Miss Swartz as a daughter of a slave-owner, whilst talking about her wealth. The connection is explicit. 

Thackeray also mentions other races or ethnicities. When Sambo, the servant of the Sedleys appears, Thackeray often mentions him as “black Sambo” or “Sambo, the black servant”. 

There are a few references to Jews.   

“The Hebrew aide-de-camp in the service of the officer at the table bid against the Hebrew gentleman employed by the elephant purchasers, and a brisk battle ensued over this little piano, the combatants being greatly encouraged by Mr. Hammerdown.” (Ch.17) 

Miss Swartz, as mentioned above, is a daughter of a German Jew and a West Indian—her hair is described as jet-black and curly as Sambo’s. 

Vanity Fair also reflects British people’s view on race at the time. 

“Mr. Sedley was neutral. "Let Jos marry whom he likes," he said; "it's no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren."” (Ch.6) 

The girl with no fortune, in case you don’t know the book or don’t remember, is Becky Sharp. 

The word “mahogany” appears again later, in a different context: when Mr Osborne hints to George that he wants her to marry Rhoda Swartz. 

“This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet to him. The contrast of her manners and appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of such a mahogany charmer as that!” (Ch.21)

But the word “mahogany” is also used by the writer/ narrator himself. 

“There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfied appearance…” (Ch.56) 

Some people may object to this line in Vanity Fair:

“"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up his shirt-collars. "I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the black that sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. I'm not going to marry a Hottentot Venus."” (Ch.21) 

Does that mean George Osborne is a racist? Perhaps, but not necessarily. We must consider the full context: George Osborne is angry that his father insults Amelia, threatens to cut him off, and tries to force him to marry Rhoda Swartz for money (about her, he thinks, “she looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-cushion at her”—ibid.), so this may just be something he says to provoke his father. But it’s also possible that George Osborne is racist—he is a self-centred, unpleasant, and unprincipled man. 

Nevertheless, the novel reflects what some people thought about other races at the time, and it’s more explicit than in Jane Austen’s major novels. I say major novels because she did have characters from the West Indies in her last, unfinished novel Sanditon—we cannot know what she would have written, had she lived longer and been able to finish it.

I’m currently on chapter 33. When I searched for the word “Oriental” on Gutenberg, I found this passage: 

“Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern traveller, was manager of the revels. […] and he travelled about with a black attendant of most unprepossessing appearance, just like another Brian de Bois Guilbert. Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.

He led off the first charade. A Turkish officer with an immense plume of feathers (the Janizaries were supposed to be still in existence, and the tarboosh had not as yet displaced the ancient and majestic head-dress of the true believers) was seen couched on a divan, and making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however, for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was allowed to smoke. The Turkish dignitary yawns and expresses signs of weariness and idleness. He claps his hands and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare arms, bangles, yataghans, and every Eastern ornament—gaunt, tall, and hideous. He makes a salaam before my lord the Aga.

A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly. The ladies whisper to one another. The black slave was given to Bedwin Sands by an Egyptian pasha in exchange for three dozen of Maraschino. He has sewn up ever so many odalisques in sacks and tilted them into the Nile...” (Ch.51)

Look at the last two sentences. 

Note that I’m just pointing out what Thackeray and other 19th century novelists do or don’t do—I’m not saying he’s better or worse because of it.

Side note: my boyfriend tested positive for Covid last week, I myself haven’t got tested but I’m sick at the moment, so this is probably it.