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摘 要

威廉.梅克皮斯.萨克雷是英国19世纪最杰出的批判现实主义小说家之一，其作品《名利场》堪称世界经典。维多利亚时期，虽然人们已经意识到要追求民主、平等、自由，但性别歧视尚未引起他们的注意。由于没有社会地位和经济来源，女性只能依靠婚姻来改变命运。同时，社会的伦理道德也要求她们服从丈夫，服务家庭。笔者在文中竭力剖析主人公夏普的两面性。一方面她是一个冷漠的朋友。当朋友艾米丽身处困境时，她却对此视而不见。此外，她是一位不忠诚的妻子。她背叛自己的丈夫与其他男人偷情。她还是一位疯狂的拜金主义者。婚姻和爱情对她没有任何意义，除了能让她更快捷的进入上流社会。

然而，另一方面，她又是一位敢于挑战命运的女谋略家。我们不得不承认她自私、放荡、拜金的行为也是出于对现实的无奈。因为她只是一个出生在下层社会的孤儿。既然无力改变这个社会，那么她只能改变自己。所以当她雄心勃勃的向名利场发起进攻时，我们看到了一个机智的女谋略家。首先，她从始至终都在坚持一个明确的目标。其次，她懂得如何利用女性的魅力去吸引男人，利用男人。她不仅长相出众，还多才多艺，最为关键的是她能善解人意，察言观色。虽然她从未爱过罗登，但在丈夫面前始终表现的很顺从，以至于罗登能够像忠诚的管家一样为她效力。在浮华的名利场中，她敢于突破传统思想的限制，勇敢的追求自己的梦想，充分展现了女性的魅力和智慧。

因此，在现代女性能够获得更好的教育，更多的收入时，她们在物质和精神方面都应该更加的独立。同时，女性在遇到任何困难时，也应该向夏普一样保持乐观的心态。无论何时，一个聪明、勇敢、乐观的女性都能在这个社会中赢得一席之地。

关键词：负面形象 谋略家 维多利亚时代 丽贝卡.夏普 背景

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 William Makepeace Thackeray’s life

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), a great critical realistic writer, was well-known to people in the 19th century in England. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.

Thackeray, an only child of his family, was born in Calcutta, India. Both his parents served as secretary for the British East India Company. But unfortunately, his father died when he was only four years old. Because of his father’s death, Thackeray was send back to England for education in 1816 (whilst his mother remained in India). Thackeray studied at Charterhouse School for several years, but the life was quite terrible there, because he was often insulted by his classmates. As the first hardship in his life, he parodied it in later fiction as "Slaughterhouse". Six years latter, he enrolled into Trinity College, where his life improved a lot and he was much happier, compared with the miserable experience at Charterhouse School. But he left the University one year later. In this period, he was never too keen on academic studies.

On reaching the age of 21, he succeeded a great number of fortunes from his father, which allowed him to travel around the world. In Weimar, he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple, but soon gave it up. Though he came into his inheritance, he squandered much of it on gambling and funding two unsuccessful newspapers, The National Standard and The Constitutional, for which he had hoped to write. He also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. In order to find a profession to support himself, he illustrated books, which he studied in Paris, but did not pursue it except in later years as the illustrator of some of his own novels and other writings.

In 1837, he worked for a conservative publication, Fraser's Magazine, for which he produced art criticism, short fictional sketches, and two longer fictional works, Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. He was a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, with the help of John Leech, an illustrator, he starts writing for the newly created Punch magazine, where he published The Snob Papers. He achieved more recognition with his Snob Papers, but the work that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which was published in serialized installments in January 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had already become a celebrity and been popular among the very lords and ladies whom he satirized in his works.

1.2 Overview of Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair, Thackeray’s magnum opus, was widely considered to be one of the most significant works in Victorian ear. Its subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, came from John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackeray. The main character of the story is a poor girl living in lower class. Poor as she was, she did not yield to the fate of the arrangement. To squeeze herself in the upper class, she flirted with any man, no matter weather it was permitted by morality or laws, and faltered any man who was rich. She was neither a devil nor angel, but a victim of her time. Thackeray ironically exposed these ugly phenomena. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a rich merchant, was Sharp’s best friend, kind and innocent, but a bit docile and feeble.

The two girls lived in a society where women inflicted on humble status and prejudice. Amelia was born in a rich family while Sharp was an orphan. The two became close friends at Miss Pinkerton’s school for young ladies, where Amelia had been a student and Sharp a ward since the death of her father. Sharp was attractive, versatile, and pretentious and went to all length to access to the upper class. At Amelia’s home, she sat her cap at Amelia's rich brother, Jos Sedley. She was about to get Jos to propose to her, but the man left his home hurriedly. Having failed in her attempt on marrying Jos, Sharp went to Queen's Crawley as a governess to Sir Pitt Crawley's daughters, where she successfully made Captain Rawdon Crawley, Sir Pitt's younger son, fell in love with her. Besides, she won his rich aunt’s favor. However, she secretly marries Rawdon, which angers Miss Crawley. Miss Crawley disinherits Rawdon. Having found that Sharp had an affair with Lord Styne, Rawdon left for India and died of fever. Sharp was despised by English society. In the end of the story, Sharp got enough money to live in vanity fair from Jos Sedley.

Captain Dobbin gave Amelia a hand when her father got bankrupt, and strove to persuade George Osborne to marry Amelia though Dobbin himself loved her deeply. Later, George died in the battlefield. Old Mr. Osborne left a fortune to Amelia and her son. Sharp told Amelia something about her dead husband. Finally, Amelia agreed to marry Dobbin.

Rebacca Sharp has always been a controversial figure in Vanity Fair. This paper continue to explore Sharp’s character, outlook on life and try to give an analysis on her family background, social and historical factors that affect her personality. She bears both the rich artistic quality and obvious characteristics of the time. She is a sparking beauty with intelligence, strong will, and independence.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1Previous studies on Vanity Fair

It has been more than 160 years since Vanity Fair was published and the novel is still popular among the critics. For many years, the foreign scholars’ research on the novel almost involves every aspect. We can divide them into several parts: analysis of the character image, feminism and other branches. In term of analysis of character image, Harry Blamaires expressed his opinion in A Short History of English Literature that Sharp was a clever girl, but he disagreed with the measures Sharp had adopted to obtain wealth and power. As for Amelia, he liked the lovely girl for her kindness. In 1990s, the devolvement of feminist thought made a great effect on literature. Some critics tried to redefine Rebecca Sharp from the view of Feminism, for instance, William Elkin, Lisa Jadwin. In Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, Elkin thought Amelia was not the most important person but Sharp was in the novel because the latter was so ambitious and smart that she dared to break the traditions and seek her dream.

It was in 1930s, as the representative of cynical realism, Thackeray was introduced into china. Not surprising, Vanity Fair attracted Chinese attention. At present, there is no related research monograph on the novel at home expect some thesis.

Feng Jiao (2012) made a deep exploration in her paper about Sharp’s characters. She thought Sharp was always faithful to friendship and showed her sympathy to Amelia, even gave a hand to her when she was in need, particularly at a crisis. Sharp was so unlucky that not only she was born in a penniless family but became a poor orphan when she was 10 years old. As a poor orphan, to survive in this complicated society, she must arm herself with certain indecent methods. Undeniably, Sharp indeed was a talented woman. She had a good command at performance to please the rich. In return, she got what she expected.

Wang Guiyun (2009) hold that Sharp has always been a controversial figure in Vanity Fair. She regarded Sharp as a heroine. But the heroine bore both the rich artistic quality and obvious characteristics of the time. She was a sparkling beauty with intelligence, strong will, and independence. In Wang’s paper, a positive aspect of Sharp provides us with brand new enlightenment.

2.2 Deficiency in previous studies

Becky Sharp's character image in Vanity Fair has long been the controversial focus. In order to enter into the upper class, she boldly breaches the female virtues prescribed by the patriarchal society. Even so, it can not be denied that she is courageous enough to persue for better life. However, the relevant research of cnki.net and cqvip.com often witness some analysis of the negative or positive image of Sharp’s character. For example, Wang Guiyun(2009) expressed her appreciation to Becky Sharp. She thinks Sharp is an intelligence strong-will woman. The admirable woman succeeds to changing her life with the help of her excellent art of performance and speech. In my opinion, Sharp is a complicated strategist. She could get what she wanted to not only rely on her appearance but intelligence. She was neither a angel nor a mean woman, but a strategist, conquering all barriers to have a happy life in the upper class.

Chapter 3 A Long Established Negative Image

People in the Victorian age, a male-dominated and money-oriented society, were inundated with severe patriarchal system where women were categorized as mother and wife. A female who was obedient to her husband and took well care of her husband and their children was worthy to be appreciated. They were not expected to be well-educated or ambitious but submissive, passive and self sacrificing. However, what Sharp had done were exactly against the social standards.

Rebecca Sharp was born in a poor family. Her father was a sorehead artist, addicted to wine all the day and her mother was a French opera dancer, which left her a bad reputation in the society and she was destined to be a hangdog. What an impossibility it is for a indocile Sharp to submit to her fate without any resistance. She said she never had been a girl; she had been a woman since she was eight years old.

It’s no wander that her scandalous parents contributed no advantage to her identity and life but a shameful background. Living in the Victorian Age, where human were classified into different levels, women, especially those from the lower class, were excluded and repressed by the society. Women who were brought up in these vulnerable conditions may yield to the discrimination and continue to live in the terrible environment. But Sharp was not resigned to the unpleasant situation. What she wanted was to live a luxurious life in the up-class society. The only way for a girl in the Victorian Age to change her own destiny was to marry a rich man, which was very clear to Sharp. So she set foot on the vanity fair.

3.1 An indifferent friend

As an orphan living in the bottom society, Sharp was treated with discrimination and made no friends except Amelia. She realized that if she wanted to move upwards, a friend in up -class society was a necessity. Thus, Amelia, a kind girl from a rich family, became her best friend and was willing to help her. Even so, she never treated the only friend in the Pinkerton school sincerely, where nobody cared about her. She just thought that Amelia was available for her to access to the society she earnestly longed for. Besides, when Amelia’s father got bankrupt and their houses were soon be auctioned, Sharp and her newly-wed husband appeared in the auction with great interest to buy something. Although Rawdon had reminded her of Amelia’s awful condition, she still turned a blind eye on her poor friend. What’s more, sharp once seduced Amelia’s husband, George Osborne, which was a bitter pill to swallow.

Sharp was indifferent enough in term of her reaction towards friends. The only purpose for her to make friends was to make full use of them and helped her live in the upper society. The poor Joseph Sedley, shrewd Miss Crawley, sophisticated Lords Steyne...they all couldn’t avoid being utilized by Sharp.

3.2 A disloyal wife

Love was the most important thing for all the girls in their life, but Rebeeca Sharp was an exception. To her, marriage was nothing but a speedy channel to obtain wealth, social status and power. The reason why she seduced Joseph was that Joseph had much money. She did not love him at all, even made fun of him. Later, when she learned Rawdon would succeed his aunt’s heritage, she successfully made Rawdon fall in love with her and got married secretly. Sharp thought the secret marriage wouldn’t irritate Miss Crowley because she believed that Miss Crowley liked her very much and would not care about her class origin. Unexpectedly, the old woman was so angry that she disinherited Rawdon. Her dream that be a rich woman seemed impossible. However, Sharp would not accept the result quietly. Maybe women had historically and closely been associated with irrationality and weakness, but Sharp was neither irrational nor weak, which is vividly revealed at the battle of Waterloo. Rawdon was worried about their future while Sharp thought it was useless. The indulgence of sentiment only serves to make people more miserable. She widely determined to give way to no vain feelings of sorrow. Her husband’s leaving for battle didn’t bother her at all and she was never concerned about his security.

Though she had married Rawdon, she never stopped flirting with several noble men with wealth and social status. After a number of adventures, Rebecca insinuated into the graces of upper society. Not only her physical charm attracted Lord Steyne, but her wit and mimicry and her ability to get money out of him, even when he realized she was outwitting him. The illicit lovers were discovered by her husband. Consequently, Rawdon broke up with her. Even so, she didn’t feel regretful or embarrassed.

3.3 A money worshiper

Rebecca’s ambition was her outstanding characteristic. She was stuck on money and social status though she was from a poor family. When she pursued for them, she had to outwit some sophisticate people and struggle with the tough circumstances, which never frustrated her. She sacrificed husband, child, and friends to get what she wanted, but seldom felt sorry about it. In Mr. Crawley’s home, she wisely decided to render her position with the Queen’s Crawley family comfortable and secure. She began to make friends with everyone around her who was rich. All in all, Rebecca succeeded in survival vanity fair. She sacrificed everything to own them, but lost everything finally, as well.

Chapter 4 A Complicated Strategist

The controversial strategist, and Amelia's opposite, was an intelligent young woman with a gift for satire. She was described as a short sandy haired girl who had green eyes and a great deal of wit. Fluent in both French and English, Becky had a beautiful singing voice, played the piano, and showed great talent as an actress. But no matter what she did was with the intention of securing a stable position for herself or her husband after she and Rawdon was married. She advanced Rawdon's interests tirelessly, flirting with men such as General Tufto and the Marquis of Steyne in order to get him promoted. She also used her feminine wiles to distract men at card parties while Rawdon cheated them blind.

4.1 A clear goal in vanity fair

In the 19^th century, as the English bourgeois rulers had consolidated their status, people’s outlook on morality was going through great change. They paid much attention on material benefits and regarded money as the only standard to evaluate a person, which lead to a deviant tendency that people was dominated by these material wealth. Although the bourgeoisie had destroyed the devil hierarchy, they set up another unreasonable system where people would lost their freedom both in body and mind. The petty bourgeoisie was dissatisfied with the awful living condition and worried that they had no chance to apply their knowledge and ability to real life. To improve their life and social status, they made great efforts.

Rebeeca Sharp was a daughter of a petty bourgeois. Her family was quite poor and when she was ten years old, both her parents past away. She had to make a living in the female school of Pincipal, where she acted as a student, as well as a French teacher. She inherited her father’s talent for artistic and her mother’s performance art. Meanwhile, she had learned to be independent when she was only a eight-year-old girl. However, all these merits were not acknowledged, but mocked by people in her school, especially the schoolmistress and girls from the rich families. Sharp firmly believed that she was more preeminent than these silly girls whether it was in appearance, intelligence, and performance. She thought she should live a better life and be respected as the rich girls in the upper class. She was dissatisfied with the discrimination and made up her mind to fight with the society for money, status and powers.

It was proved that she gained a complete victory when she tried to fight for her own interest at the first time. She was so brave to struggle with Miss Pinkerton in the female school that the schoolmistress had to pay her much more salary and wrote a recommendation letter with favorable remark for her before she decided to leave there. Afterwards she struggled to get rid of her personal background, which may prevent her from pursuing for a noble life. It seemed her attempt was more ingenious than before, when she was at the Pitt Crawley’s home. She had conceived a story that she was brought up by grandmother, a lady in noble family, who taught her foreigner language, performances, and manners. Actually, she really had a good command of them, but they were taught by her poor parents or she learned them by herself. The white lie did work and Mr. Crowley began to treat her with a special fondness. At that time in England if you wanted to succeed in your life you must told lies. Of course, you must be competent to keep the lie, or you would be hoisted by your own petard.

As a female, Sharp’s consciousness of resistant was explicit and she clearly knew what she wanted and made plans to approach them. Everybody would encounter difficulties or failures, Sharp no an exception, but she never frustrated by them. She always held a positive attitude towards life. She hoped she could display her own talents, be respected in the society. She was ambitious to seek the goals; meanwhile she was capable of running them, which was beyond all doubt.

4.2 Special measures adopted by Sharp to achieve success

Owing to the irrational customs in the Victorian Age, Sharp, a girl from the lower class, had to adopt some special measures to win a position in vanity fair.

4.2.1 A successful honey-trap

Firstly, she used feminine superiority to obtain men’s love, and took them under control, which was the most efficient way to realize her goals. When she was in Crawley’s family, she spent only one year being the trusted friend of the male master. She pretended to be a well-educated and elegant girl when she met Rawdon. As expected, she married the man. Though she just showed her good- humor and kind to the man, and never treat him sincerely, she could persuade the man into serving for her without any hesitation. Indeed, he also deserved to be called a qualified husband. He served as Sharp’s best servant: he got on errands for her and obeyed her orders without any question; he took her to the opera and solaced himself at his club during the performance, and came punctually back to fetch her when it was over. Even when he was leaving for the Battle of Waterloo, he worried about her future. Perhaps Sharp liked him the better for being a fool.

Lord Steyne , a sophisticated old man, lived a debauched life. Sharp must had been foxy enough to have a contact with him. Since she had an acquaintance with him, she seized every chance to take part in private parties the rich man held, where some of the very greatest doors in the metropolis are speedily opened to her. She could meet much noble men and please them with sweet words so that they were willing to help her pay for the debt or bring her any profits. This was very common in Victorian Age and not only for Sharp herself but for the noble ladies.

4.2.2 An ambitious nonresistant

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