Becky Sharp and Using Society's Ideals Against It

In the middle-nineteenth century England, commonly known as the Victorian era, women were held to unreasonable standards. English society expected women to help their husbands and be pure and virtuous. Men, especially, expected women to live up to the idealized Victorian woman; “for centuries, female ‘virtue’ and ‘honor’ have denoted not truthfulness but ‘chastity, purity” (Jadwin 667). Because of this societal expectation, many authors depicted their women to meet such an ideal. However, a notable writer, William Makepeace Thackeray, wrote one of his protagonists, Becky Sharp, to contrast and subvert many aspects of such Victorian expectations of women. Rebecca (Becky) Sharp is one of, and arguably, the most important protagonist in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Thackeray’s Becky Sharp acts in opposition to gender roles and expectations of purity and innocence, while also using these limiting expectations to her advantage. This opposition to typical Victorian ideals contributes to Thackeray’s satirization of Victorian England’s society and his criticism of its absurdly shallow nature, revealing that Victorian men are oblivious to women’s power and conditioned to see them as powerless.

Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp behaves in a way that consistently acts against the stereotypical Victorian view of women. Thackeray uses Becky’s discrete subversion of gender roles to illustrate that the subjugation of women “may in fact teach women to see beyond patriarchal ‘truth’ to infinite alternative realities that resist the containment of definition” (Jadwin 663). Throughout the book, Becky manipulates men to get what she wants: she charms men with a greater social status than her in an attempt to raise her own. Her manipulative behavior is uncharacteristic of the ideal Victorian female, who is expected to have “the passive virtues of English femininity” (Dobson 2). In order to successfully charm men, Becky takes on the role of the  “gentle” (Patmore) Victorian woman, successfully fooling men who view her as incapable of something so calculated. Rebecca’s first advance on Joseph (Jos) Sedley presents his view of her, as she touches his hand, quickly retracting it, in what Thackeray describes as “an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest” (Thackeray 35). Jos fails to see through her act: his “heart thump[ed] at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard” (Thackeray 35). Jos is unable to fathom that such a seemingly sweet girl could possibly be manipulating him since she presents herself as a good Victorian woman. The novel’s narrator even exclaims that it is “a mercy… that these women do not exercise their powers oftener,” directly implying that women are able to use their limitations to advance their power in society. Thus, the patriarchy’s attempts to limit women ultimately work against it. Thackeray’s depiction of this failure of Victorian society is used to criticize the superficial thinking of Victorian England’s society. Their failure to think more deeply into female behavior ultimately allows them to be used by women.

Thackeray uses Becky Sharp’s manipulation of gender roles to criticize the society he lives in and their obliviousness. Becky doesn’t only manipulate men with gender roles, she manipulates the gender roles themselves through performance. Rebecca takes on the identity of the “Angel of the House,” (Patmore), submissive to men with no desires of her own, in order to further herself in society. The performance of women in Vanity Fair “points towards an unrealized liberatory potential” (Dobson 2), furthering Thackeray’s criticism of English society in his time by suggesting that if its ideals are met, the women meeting them could very well be faking, indicating that attempts to limit women are ultimately freeing. This points towards the obliviousness and shallowness of not only Victorian men, but Victorian England as a whole, by scrutinizing its inability to initially see through facades and the Victorian society’s expectation that simply telling people what to do would successfully implement their agendas. Becky Sharp’s performance of the “gentle” and “devoted” (Patmore) Victorian woman is eventually recognized as being ingenuine, however, throughout the text, many people do fall for it. In the time in which she can fool those around her, her “performance of English femininity enables, if only temporarily, material and social accession which in turn points towards the potential for female agency” (Dobson 7). Thackeray, although he eventually writes Rebecca to be “pushed towards [an]other preset [script] of normativity so that [she] can be again construed as [a] ‘properly’ English wom[an]” (Dobson 21) after her true identity is exposed, uses her temporary manipulation of gender roles to advance her in society to suggest that “Performance points towards the possibility for change, while the recognition thereof leads to social reinscription” (Dobson 21). His presentation of “gender performance” as something that allows women to escape their assigned roles is used to further the idea that Victorian England’s values primarily serve the people who see through and manipulate those values. Again, his society initially fails to see through facades, allowing people to use its ideals against it and successfully subvert its predestined expectations of those people. Although she was ultimately discovered, Becky had the potential to move up in society’s ranks by pretending to be what she was expected to be.

Becky also defies Victorian gender expectations through her intelligence and education, using the underestimation of her abilities to manipulate those around her, illustrating the futility of the attempts made by Victorian society to constrain women by keeping them sheltered from knowledge. In Victorian England women were meant to adopt “the role of ‘dumb blonde’” (Jeffers), oblivious to what is going on around her and obedient. Becky, however, is acutely aware of those around her and how they are feeling which ultimately allows her to manipulate them. Becky did receive an education, thanks to her father’s place as an art teacher at Miss Pinkerton’s Academy. Many upper-class women in the Victorian era would have stayed home to focus on domestic endeavors; although Becky was not upper-class, upper-class women would have more likely held the characteristics of the “chaste” women men sought. With a formal education, Becky already had something that was not necessarily valued in Victorian society. However, Becky’s intelligence further alienated her from the perfection expected of women. She has extensive knowledge of French, implying a potential deeper understanding of language and linguistics in general. Even though knowledge of a foreign language was a valuable asset for a woman to have, Becky’s use of her knowledge was unconventional and anything but innocent. Thackeray ties together “women’s linguistic mobility and their social mobility” (Jadwin 669), suggesting that with the ability to manipulate language, women are able to climb the social ladder. Becky’s deeper knowledge of language gives her a greater ability to manipulate language than many other women, and, thus, allows her to rise in society despite her unorthodox personality; she “busily exploits the weaknesses of… the debased and precarious symbolic order of language” (666). Thackeray’s narrator goes as far as to say that if women “knew their own power,” they “would overcome [men] entirely.” But Becky does realize her power, and the obliviousness of men presented by the narrator is precisely the reason her manipulation is so successful. The precomposed notion that women are unintelligent allows Becky to fully exploit her intelligence without consequences; men don’t suspect her of having impressive intellectual ability, enabling her to use it to manipulate them without their knowledge.

Ultimately, Thackeray uses Becky Sharp to further his criticism of Victorian England’s “Vanity” and shallowness, by illustrating how their desires, values, and ideals lead them to be fooled by people, especially women, who hold desires of their own and are not “Angel[s] of the House” (Patmore) who only exist for the pleasure of men. Becky Sharp’s manipulation of men plays on their expectations of her as a woman to get them to see her as genuine, allowing her to use them to try to move up in society. Her use of performance is used to fool those around her, and, although eventually discovered, leaves the reader to consider what successful performance suggests for society. Her intelligence, unsuspected by Victorian men, is what ultimately allows her to realize the influence and power she has, giving her easier access to social ascension. Despite Becky’s use of gender roles being dated to Victorian era England, gender roles and societal expectations continue to persist and the example of Becky’s use of expectations to oppose them points to similar “liberatory potential” (Dobson 2) for people today. Becky is an example of a subtle and effective way of defying gender expectations and social expectations so that an individual can achieve social ascension. 

Works Cited

Dobson, Kit. “‘An Insuperable Repugnance to Hearing Vice Called by Its Proper Name’: Englishness, Gender, and the Performed Identities of Rebecca and Amelia in Thackeray’s <italic>Vanity Fair</Italic>.” Victorian Review, vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793597. Accessed 10 Mar. 2024.

Jadwin, Lisa. “The Seductiveness of Female Duplicity in Vanity Fair.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 32, no. 4, 1992, pp. 663–87. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/450965. Accessed 10 Mar. 2024.

Watson, John. “Thackeray and Becky Sharp: Creating Women.” Dickens Studies Annual, vol. 25, 1996, pp. 305–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44371912. Accessed 10 Mar. 2024.

Allingham, Merryn. “Women in Victorian England .” Merrynallingham.com, 2019, merrynallingham.com/19th-century/women-in-victorian-england/. 

Jeffers, Regina. “Expectations for Ladies of Society in the Victorian Era: “Lady-of-All-Works.”” Every Woman Dreams..., 13 July 2016, https://reginajeffers.blog/2016/07/13/expectations-for-ladies-of-society-in-the-victorian-era/#:~:text=Many%20Victorian%20women%20were%20expected. Accessed 3 June 2024.