General Impression and Friendship between Becky and Amelia
Misato Kibe
Good morning. I would like to write about 1) my general impressions with Vanity Fair, and 2) my thoughts on friendship of Becky and Amelia.
1) I am deeply impressed with how Thackery uses many characters in one novel. This was the first time for me to read a book with stories from some different points of view. Harry Potter series, for example, have many characters but the author basically focuses on Harry's point of view. Vanity Fair, on the other hand, the author describes Becky's story, the Crawley's story, the Sedleys' story, the Osborns' story, and Dobbin's story individually. Since Becky and Amelia, and George and Dobbin have opposite personalities, I was amazed that how Thackery had deep thoughts on the diversities of human lives, multihold aspects of human nature. Now I am interested to know if there are more books which have the same characteristics.
2) Some poeple might say Becky and Amelia are friends, but I do not think they are. They had spent time together in the same school (although Becky had stayed there as a French teacher while Amelia was a student) and went to Amelia's home together, they seemed to be 'friends'. Their friendship, however, does not have actions, I think. If two people were friends, outsiders would see two of them helping each other. Nonetheless, I only see Amelia helps Becky (in terms of giving home and opportunities for her), but no return from Becky. I see the more the story goes, the more reveal that Becky does not care Amelia so much. Moreover, Becky seems that she does not believe in love or friendship, but only cachet. Hence I think Becky and Amelia were not "friends" all along.
if you have to live either life, which do you choose?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very cynical novel. In the world of Vanity Fair nothing has any real value. That is a hint as to why it is "a novel without a hero". On the other hand, Thackeray shows his characters as very human. We can understand them, because in some ways we are like them. This gives his novel tremendous power; if nothing has any value in Vanity Fair, and our world is similar to Vanity Fair perhaps nothing has any value in our world either?
ReplyDeleteMany novels deal with the difficulty of finding a meaning, a purpose, a sense of what has real value in this world. Thackeray's way of dealing with it is by showing what does *not* have value. The challenge is to find something else, something that *is* worth something.
I was wondering how books would be different if they were written in first perspective or third persepective. Vanity Fair is a third perspective ( I think...?) but books like "Life of Pi" (This is a book I'm reading recently so it maybe a book you might not know...sorry) is a book written in a first perspective. What kind of impression do you think it gives the readers? I think if the book is written in first perspective it gives the book a more subjective taste. The book maybe filled with stories with the narrator's experiences!
ReplyDeleteIf the author rewrites the book with taking someone's perspective, I wonder who he would choose! The book is intersting because the author actually comment on the story. So it cannot be completely "third-perspective".
DeleteI'm not finished reading the book, but I glimpsed the author actually mentions that he met the characters!!
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