Jewish American Literature: Generational Trauma

Reimagining History: A “Real” Affair

Fictional narratives mixed with historical elements explore Jewish characters’ experiences both in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and Philip Roth’s Plot Against America, creating the fundamental question: What are the benefits of historical truth, especially in these stories? The main characters, in both works, are Holocaust survivors and children of survivors, concerned about their precise place in history. They are in search for identity, undergoing direct and generational trauma, creating nostalgia for a world in which they were born into a place that was theirs for a lifetime. The hope of being reunited with a loved one, or even finding the slightest information, despite fact that the person is no longer alive, or of completing a particular project, play an important role in one’s survival. Both Jonathan Safran Foer and Philip Roth constantly ask questions, wrestle with the truth and historical facts, remain unsatisfied with answers, particularly with answers that seem not to satisfy and relieve them: Each period in history has its evils, but the World War II period stains one’s thoughts and visions. The two novels by Foer and Roth, though seemingly different, yet they impart a similar message: When words are not enough to describe the failure of man to man and when language seems to trivialize the dehumanizing events and the crisis of identity, historical facts become the vehicle by which meaning is conveyed.

Though it is true that Foer’s narrative incorporates fantastic elements, coexistence of multiple worlds, and reconciliation of different languages, nonetheless, it uses historical truth to illuminate one of the narrator’s, Jonathan’s beginnings. Jonathan is a Jewish-American who travels to the Ukraine, in order to explore his past. The village of Trachimbrod is the Ukrainian village Trochenbrod, and its story is mythical in the novel, presenting a disruption in the linear presentation of events—a strategy that assists in the portraying of traumas of the past. The characters in the novel, as it progresses, slowly become part of a larger picture encompassing individual and collective traumas. The reader’s experience of assembling together the story piece by piece into a linear narrative is in accord with the structure of trauma as a disruption in history. Every historical element is like a code for something missing. In here, the village of Trachimbrod is the code for the missing Jewish population, massively killed by the Nazis. It acts as a door for Jonathan to solve his crisis for identity. Critic Elitza Kotzeva, have pointed that “readers who seek similarities between the historical Holocaust in the Ukraine and the events described in the text might stumble upon obvious problems regarding the story’s authenticity.” This is not the point of such usage of historical facts. What one chooses to unveil in fiction is directed by a motive essentially aesthetic; the reader criticizes the author of a novel by how he tells the tale.

Further, what might one ask is how close is the narration to the truth? Examining Foer’s novel, the following interpretation is inevitable: Memories are a significant part of one’s life. Jonathan has come to the Ukraine to unearth some of the memories his grandmother and grandfather attempted to bury. Reimagination of history is not a manipulation on Foer’s part, but a reflection of his attitudes toward memory. Jonathan Safran Foer attempts to express how significant memories are. He tells the story of Brod, a woman living in Trochimbrod, who’ll give birth to a child whose direct descendant will be Jonathan, to show how it directly relates to that of his grandfather. Out of the desire to remember everything the people of Trachimbrod create The Book of Antecedents and The Book of Recurrent Dreams. These books are passed down generation after generation and studied in attempt to keep the memories of their fathers alive. Lisa Propst, in her article “Making One Story? Forms of Reconciliation in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated and Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Cases” quotes Foer, “the fictional Jonathan finds nothing but nothing, traveling through a landscape of completely realized absence” (30). Although Jonathan, the “hero,” as Alex, the other narrator in the novel calls him, finds no woman called Augustine who supposedly saved his grandfather during the Holocaust, but he finds hope and history that connect him to his past and partly complete the incomplete. Why would someone try to theorize such traumatic experiences? There might be no unanswered questions, but doesn’t every novel embody some dark areas? And isn’t sometimes the essence of the question to be without answer. The ultimate importance here is that Jonathan, reimagining historical truth, creates a possibility for the unity with the past. However one defines hope, most Jews during the dark times had none. For many, memories were the only element to soothe the anguish that had penetrated their souls. In his narrative, in reference to Trachimbrod, Jonathan says, “There’s definitely something out there” (Foer 99), still hoping and waiting for the memory to unveil itself. It is true that Foer’s acquaintance with the facts is much less “developed” than his understanding and weighing of fiction; nonetheless, there is definitely purpose and balance “out there.”

Similarly, Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America reimagines some elements of historical truth, bringing historical incident to life. Nathan Zuckerman speaks of Roth, “And as he spoke I was thinking, the kind of stories that people turn life into, the kind of lives that people turn stories into” (qtd. in Roth 3). The natural thought is that fiction only cannot function within the sphere of make-believe. After all, most readers prefer facts or what they take to be facts. For instance, if there were no Charles A. Lindbergh in the novel, along with the kidnapping story of his son, he would not for a moment win the reader’s sympathy, thus creating a cold transition in the novel. The non-fictional characters are also there for the reader to make connections to the present times and see how politics works its destructive effects at the personal level. Though it is true that Roth oscillates between fable and familiar realism or documentation, yet the reader experiences the outrage and frustration lived by the characters. As Judith Paterson Jones and Guinevera state in Philip Roth, “[Roth] points to the universalities of the human condition that lie beneath the secular façade” (162). It is apparent that the seven-year-old protagonist, Philip, represents many seven-year-old children in extraordinarily dreadful conditions, for instance the Holocaust, who simply wish “why-can’t-it-be-the-way-it-was” and often think, “I’d never before had to grow up at a pace like this” (Roth 172). There is certainly a confusion of identity for Philip, as he is unable to grasp big and dark concepts such as race, hatred, and anger. Also, the anti-Semitism and Lindbergh’s fascist administration in the United States, in the parameters of the novel, although fictional, but do not fail to depict man’s inhumanity to man and pains, both physical and emotional, that are so overwhelming.

Moreover, there is a two-folded experience in Roth’s novel: the historical truth and the basis of the representation of the truth. The truth is already blurred with fiction in the novel, and by the time it is passed to the reader, it is again re-interpreted and re-modeled. So is there really historical truth? As Herman Roth, young Philips’s father puts it, “Because what’s history? History is everything that happens everywhere. Even here in Newark. Even here on Summit Avenue. Even what happens in his house to an ordinary man—that’ll be history too someday” (Roth 180). Thus, history and historical truth are created by internalizing the external—the external, here, being the factual elements. Gregory Currie, in his essay “Both Sides of the Story: Explaining Events in a Narrative” describes the process through which we decide to interpret fiction: The author creates a world: a world of characters and events, and the characters do what the author decides they should do . . . we don’t seek to explain why this or that is fictional, we seek to explain why this character did that, or why this fate befell that character (54). Applying the notion to The Plot Against America, whatever the vehicle, Roth’s attack is consistently the disparity in American life, his targets being America’s hyper-nationalists, racists, sexists, and vulgarians. The reader’s “job” is to filter the fictional and factual in the novel and come up with his own interpretation. Roth’s novel is multilayered, and one than more notions can be born after reading the novel. One thing, however, is clear—Roth makes reality credible in fiction. Holocaust seems to be the central point of the novel, yet in the plot against America is where the focus should be. If there were no historical figures, such as Lindbergh or Franklin Roosevelt mentioned in the novel, how then would this be a satire on American political life or an attack on its most abhorrent matters? The historical truth needs to be there in order to create close relationship between the reader and the text. If the reader relates to the non-fictional characters and some of the “real” events within the story, he can certainly reimagine the position of the familiar target—American nuclear family within such a corrupt state.

The historical truth is represented as something essential, yet multi-layered in both Foer’s and Roth’s novels. In Everything is Illuminated, historical elements represent a return to the past, giving much significance to memory. These truthful segments, in this particular piece, eliminate the superficiality of the characters. They give Jonathan, not only hope that his past exists and unity with the past members of the family who have been killed during the Holocaust is still possible, though not physically, but at the same time depict the ferocities of fascists who wanted to entirely get rid of Jews, from the planet, as a “final solution.” Jonathan’s journey is reminiscent of the emotional crossing of the survivors or the children of survivors who want to be suspended on earth with ties to someone, to some thing. Similar to Foer’s novel in stylisitic approach and topics, The Plot Against America is “reality” found in American experience. The historical truth in this novel is based mostly on true-life characters and events. The fantasized Holocaust occurrences in the novel are mostly satirical, in order to show the surrealism of the “real” world. It is an attack on corrupt politics, which has its devastating effects at the personal level. As a result, the individual is engaged in a life and death struggle with all the internal and external forces of control.

Works Cited

Currie, Gregory. “Both Sides of the Story: Explaining Events in a Narrative.”

Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic

Tradition 135.1 (2007): 49-63. Print.

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Everything is Illuminated. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Print.

Jones, Judith P., and Guinevera A. Nance. Philip Roth. New York: Frederick Ungar

Publishing Co., Inc., 1981. Print.

Kotzeva, Elitza. “Everything is Illuminated.” Masterplots (2010): 1-3.

MagillOnLiterature Plus. EBSCO. Web. 1 May 2011.

Propst, Lisa. “Making One Story?’ Forms of Reconciliation in Jonathan Safran Foer’s

Everything is Illuminated and Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Glass.”

MELUS 36.1 (2011): 36-60. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 1 May 2011.

Roth, Philip. The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography. New York: Farrar, Straus, &

Giroux, 1988. Print.

Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Print.

Anne Frank's Diary & MAUS

Anne Frank

Truth in Deviation

In discussing the Holocaust, it is important to note the difference between historical and narrative truths. Naturally, the greater emphasis is on the former, as it is the systematic and accurate stating of facts. In contrast with historical truth, narrative truth is somebody’s perspective of those factual events. This “deviated” truth, nonetheless, when speaking of the Holocaust and its dreadful events, does not convey untrue messages in regards to the subject. In order to show the various gendered perspectives in the light of narrative truth, examining Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and Art Spiegelman’s MAUS might further illuminate the subject. The characters in both works are all hardworking individuals, with incredible resourcefulness and initiative. Both stories concentrate on specific, family lives and their struggles during the Holocaust, rather than on every event in Europe during the Holocaust. There is a certain specificity that comes with speculating the gendered perspectives in both stories through narrative truth, managing to the inhumanity of man to man. Furthermore, the protagonists’ direct and indirect recollections and reflections of their experiences do not provide answers to their degraded and traumatized states, yet they do not fail to show man’s inhumanity to man, whether through the perspective of a young girl or an experienced, male survivor.

Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl can be seen as a personal historical document. Although, it has touched millions of readers worldwide, still many criticize the diary, because it contains no first-hand accounts of the horrors of the Nazi genocide. They fault the book's popularity because it focuses on an individual in a unique situation, rather than on the broader Holocaust experience. Despite the negative views of the Diary, Frank’s perseverance fills a need to return to optimism. The reader, especially the teenage reader, sympathizing and empathizing with Frank, might as well be inspired by the indomitable spirit of teenage Frank, disregarding the absence of some solid recounting of the events of the Holocaust. Despite the seriousness of the subject, Frank incorporates humor in her piece, intentional or non-purposed, which contributes to the uniqueness of the book. A New York Times best-selling author, Francis Prose notes in her book, Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, “Occasionally, horror is commingled with comedy, again in ways that deepen our understanding of Anne’s ‘characters’ and their interrelations” (123). The humor and comic elements are typical of a teenage girl, in their irreverence and sarcasm. She holds nothing back in her biting portrayals of the other hideaways, and the result is often quite comical. In one of her entries, she comments on Mrs. Van Daan, one of the residents of the Secret Annex, explaining that her bed is "shoved against the window so that Her Majesty, arrayed in her pink bed jacket, can sniff the night air through her delicate little nostril” (96). Anne's humor is also turned on herself, as in the entry on December 22, 1942, in which she concludes that she is afraid that her common sense will vanish by the end of the war since she uses too much of it (63). Sarcasm is a key element of Frank's sense of humor and one that plays a vital role in her ability to cope with her extreme situation.

Melissa Muller in her book discusses the importance of narrative truth, it having a greater chance of reaching the reader, than the bare and plain stating of events: “The historian Yehuda Bauer has said that historical research cannot rely on theoretical analysis alone; it requires as well the telling of true stories” (Muller xi). The storyteller is ranked higher by Muller than a historian because without perspective, in the Diary’s case, one would not empathize with Anne Frank. “History does not repeat itself, but man does” are the famous words of Voltaire. It is with repetition that one comes to understand the struggles and the dehumanization of individual experiences. It can be assumed that it is Frank’s gender that allows her to be quite expressive and repetitive; nonetheless, associating expressive traits with women is a stereotype and has not been proven by psychological research. At several accounts, however, Frank states: “Paper is patient” (123), “Kitty is always patient” (46), or “Paper is more patient than man” (2), indicating that she is in need of a non-judgmental listener, who will patiently listen to her joys and sorrows, worries and pleasures. The reader may find many of her feelings and experiences familiar, indicating that the process of growing up, with all of its pain, joy, and uncertainty, is generally the same regardless of time, place, or situation. Her age and gender affect the narrative technique and style, as Frank, in awkward and introspective time of maturity and in extraordinary circumstances, chooses a diary as her confidante. Being the optimistic person that she is, and the great potential that she might have as a writer, it is especially frightening that Frank’s hopes and dreams, along with her body give way to typhus, at a concentration camp.

Moreover, Frank’s optimism is so deeply embedded in her identity that it sustains her through much hardship. She writes in one of her last entries of the Diary, “It is really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd . . . to carry out . . . in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” (263). This statement is compelling when the reader realizes that this entry was one of the last made by Frank, after having lived in the Secret Annex for two years and hearing news of the horrors taking place in the outside world. There is a highly complex situation here: would acknowledgment of the situation, by Nazi targets, including Frank, ensure that action would be taken in the direction of rescue? In Frank’s case, it would not, as she is a teenage girl who lives secretly in an annex, with her family. There is not much she can do about missing a meal, being constantly in the danger of getting bombed and killed, or being taken away by a train to a camp.

On the other hand, Frank’s sensibility, as opposed to Vladek Spiegelman’s reserved nature, from MAUS, contrast in a way. Vladek Spiegelman is the principal protagonist in the narrative and also acts as an intermediate narrator for most of the material in the book—that is, he narrates his life story to Art, his son, who retells Vladek's story, frequently using Vladek's own words. Again, there is an example of narrative truth, where the events are described through somebody’s understanding of those accounts. These events are somewhat affected by the great trauma of the survivors. Art Spiegelman is one of the narrators within the graphic text where he frequently tries to express the inexpressible. In other words, Art is self-referential, in narrowing the space between the reader and the text, by adding personal opinions outside of his conversations with the other protagonist, Vladek. This is obvious in the beginning of the story when Art provides some context for the reader in the third person perspective. The beginning is not only worthy of mentioning in terms of style, but it also provides some perspective on Vladek’s character. Art mentions, “My father was in front, fixing something” (5), which already indicates that his father is a hardworking man. This, also, foreshadows the later struggles, recollected by Vladek, during the difficult times. Within the text, Vladek and his second wife, Mala, represent the point of view of Holocaust survivors, while Art represents someone who did not experience the Holocaust, but is still deeply connected to it; the text is manifestly a reaction of a non-survivor because of generational trauma. Anja, Art’s mother, eventually seeks to escape the trauma of the Holocaust by committing suicide. According to author Leni Yahil, “It appears to be an empirical fact of human nature that it is difficult for people to adapt their way of thinking to new circumstances” (544). Yahil’s point seems to be evident in this case, as nothing seems to save Anja from death, from the involuntary exhaustion of her own mind.

Furthermore, Anja’s act reverberates throughout Vladek’s life and affects his narrative; he feels somehow responsible. The reader can see Vladek’s soft and sensitive side, when he breaks down in front of his son, remembering Anja: “Oy, Anja! Anja! Anja!” (129). Before this point, his narrative seemed to be a reportage of the recollection of the events during the Holocaust. Even if there were sensitive moments included in Vladek’s stories, they were all accounts of the past. However, part of his now-character is revealed, and under the alienated, proud survivor figure, one can notice the man who suffers and is unfulfilled with his life. Although he survived, Vladek remains colored by his experiences: “I cannot forget it . . . Ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb” (Spiegelman 238). To Vladek, money is literally life—too many times having a bribe literally saves his life—and he refuses to willingly part with any amount of money that can be squirreled away. Vladek’s gethering of materials, kept from the Holocaust has another layer to it. Its symptoms, as expressed by Mala—“He’s more attached to things than to people” (132)—are apparent. The degrading and drastic situations in concentration camps mold Vladek into the character that he is at present. As the male of the household, he almost had a responsibility to survive, for everybody’s sake.

In addition, the material objects are tangible rather than virtual; therefore, they are more immediate to the collector. In his essay “Counting Six Million: Collecting Projects and Holocaust Memorization,” Jewish Social Studies scholar Daniel H. Magilow, explains this phenomenon: “Unlike memorials that grow old and illegible, collecting projects do not treat trauma as entirely separate, distant, and relevant only as an object of reflection . . .The collecting of material objects connects past with the present” (39). The tangibles from the past do not fade like memories might, due to aging, but are constantly there to remind of the past. Vladek, although a stern-seeming father figure, still lives the aftereffects of the Holocaust. To Mala he might seem antisocial, or a total insensitive human, yet he is a typical product of the Nazi-planned genocide, looking for a path to second salvation.

Frank’s Diary and Spiegelman’s MAUS have the Holocaust as the central theme and dominant feature of both texts. Both authors recount their Holocaust experiences in a more individual and specific manner. Although the Diary, in contrast with MAUS, has a single narrator, it still does not fail to portray the struggles and sorrows of the sufferers during the Holocaust. Both works, however, no matter the dreadfulness of the topic, provide comical elements which by no means are there to trivialize the serious subject, but to show the accuracy of those recollections and reflections. The narrative truth might not be as precise as historical truth; yet, it is still a depiction of historical events, in a more immediate and personal manner. Surviving physically does not mean surviving mentally or being liberated from the trauma of the Holocaust. The protagonists, on their entry to the camps, are overcome before they can adapt; they are beaten by the time they realize a strike is on its way. They are not only entangled in the infernal knots of the drastic events, but also in their narrative truths.

Works Cited

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. Trans. B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday. New York:

Bentam Books, 1986. Print.

Magilow, Daniel H. “Counting Six Million: Collecting Projects and Holocaust

Memorialization.” Jewish Social Studies 14.1 (2007): 23-39. Print.

Muller, Melissa. Anne Frank: The Biography. Trans. Robert Kimber, et al. New York:

Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1998. Print.

Prose, Francine. Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife. New York: HarperCollins

Publishers, 2003. Print.

Spiegelman, Art. MAUS. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Print.

Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry. New York: Oxford University Press,

1990. Print.

Victorian Literature--Vanity Fair

Becky Sharp: Vanity Alert!

“Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or having it, is satisfied?” (Thackeray 809). William Thackeray ends his novel, Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero on a pessimistic note. Up to this point, Thackeray has not failed to show the piercing hypocrisies of Vanity Fair, revealing the disgusting, brutal, degrading affliction behind and below its elegant gleam. The main attack here is on the Victorian, bourgeois society and the extreme and bizarre motives that drive some characters’ passions. Rebecca Sharp (Becky), known as Rebecca Crawley later in the book, is one of those characters: She is calculating, manipulative, crafty and most of all, vain. Becky is not virtuous, and in speaking of her as a morally significant figure, one should not possibly confuse her moral meaning with the meaning of “virtue.” By representing her world at its highest energetic potential, by molding all its evil, confused, and formless impulses into brilliantly controlled intention, she tricks the reader in believing that she actually endows her world with meaning. Becky is the orphaned daughter of destitute parents, and she learns early on how to look out for her own interests. Her urge to climb the social ladder and claim social status is concretely portrayed in the novel. Becky herself is a member of no particular class, and her desires for upward mobility are that much stronger. Thackeray, through the character of Becky, discusses the acquisitive society in great detail, by revealing the actual corruptions of performance.

Vanity Fair, of course, is most concerned with performance for personal advancement. Although Becky is an attractive character because she is refreshingly active and lively in contrast with the passive and uninteresting Amelia Sedley, the daughter of John Sedley who is successful and moneyed as the novel opens, and refreshingly natural in contrast to the self-righteous and hypocritical characters like Mrs. Bute Crawley or Lady Southdown, still her ongoing act and performance to gain rise above her state is cunning and deceptive. Early in the novel, she appears to be greatly managing her performance, and she is yet only an apprentice. By attending and earning her keep at Miss Pinkerton’s academy, Becky overshadows Miss Pinkerton by her wits and “sweet” and “timid” aims. Thackeray uses two phrases about her for this case, which are worth dwelling upon. The first is not striking in itself, but still shows her ambitious nature: “Began acting for herself” (22). Here, the literal sense of acting is emboldened by its context. There is an absolute comparison with the first pages in her childish mockery of Miss Pinkerton when “the dismal precocity of poverty she talked and turned away duns, and coaxed and wheedled tradesmen” (Thackeray 18). Thackeray, here, presents her as gifted in performance, wit, and mimicry, and turning her gifts into a necessary trade. Thus, in a way, as Christopher Lindner points out in his article, “Thackeray’s Gourmand: Carnivals of Consumption in ‘Vanity Fair’,” “Thackeray’s narration exhibits a fascination with commodity culture’s spectacular and performative aspects” (566). In her constant urge for consumption, Becky Sharp is thoroughly corrupt in reaching her goal—upward mobility. Her vanity, self-fashioning, and performance have one purpose—to gain control in every situation. These blemishes she possesses are never to be lost.

Thackeray further emphasizes the notion of performance for personal gain through Becky’s character. He also shows her encouraged and contaminated by her father’s “wild companions,” performing the part of “the ingénue” (19) at Miss Pinkerton’s. In order to get in to the upper circles and be accepted, Becky puts on a different kind of act in burlesque and caricature at home. Thackeray intentionally seems to blur the distinction between performance as profession and as a way of life, and within that way of life he shows the reader Becky’s act being as persuasive, self-commodifying, deceptive, and subversive. Becky goes through stages in order to achieve the stated foibles: At the Academy, Becky is driven to act by loneliness and boredom, especially among women, then by envy, and lastly, by a carefully crafted project of ambition: “She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign . . . Yet, she determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself” (Thackeray 20). The “prison” is referred to the Academy, but also, metaphorically, it alludes to the world to which Becky belongs—the world of the common people. Brian McCuskey, the author of the essay, “Fetishizing the Flunkey: Thackeray and the Uses of Deviance,” makes a commentary on people like Becky Sharp, who feel as downcast and alone, outside of the noble circle: “Without an invitation to the very best dinners, the lower-middle-class snob sees little of high society apart from the liveried footmen who . . . stand between him and those dinners” (387). Living so close to such lavishes and not being able to taste the treasures of the high rank motivates Becky even further and gives way to the act of performance, both literally and figuratively.

Moreover, in order to better understand Becky’s character and her motivation through act, one ought to scrutinize her first non-professional performance. The event takes place in Amelia’s house, and Thackeray stresses two things: her experience, as when she surprises Amelia by saying, unnecessarily, that she dotes on little children, and her avariciousness, as she envies Amelia’s things—“her books, and her piano, and her dress, and her necklaces, brooches, laces and gimcracks” (22). In this novel, objects are envied, used, acquired, bought, presented, and the result is to emphasize through them the apparent and overplayed consumption, and also their dramatic use. Mostly, Thackeray accentuates the act itself, rather than the materials desired. The exceedingly cunning Becky Sharp will stop at nothing to get social power—whether through performance or cunningly artful dialogue or seduction; she will coax the prey into her dungeon.

Not only does Thackeray, through the actual description of scenes of performances, convey meaning across and further unveil Becky’s character, but also through her language patterns, costume and property, cumulative behavior description, the account of her controlled behavior enclosed to words, tones, gestures, and at times extending to laughter and even tears. In her conversation with George Osborne, a wealthy young man, though not a nobleman, who is Mr. Sedley’s godson, performs one of her best acts, with great show of emotion: “And she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry they would be to part with her” (Thackeray 39). Becky continues her overdramatic acting, “‘Oh heavenly, heavenly flowers! Exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt the [flowers] delicately, and held them to her bosom . . . in an ecstasy of admiration” (Thackeray 45). The author shows Becky arranging her language, tone, and behavior, often simply doing things in appropriate emotional fashion, like entertaining her friends, or in talking about fascinating India, or in arranging her clothing and appearance to bring out her pathos.

Becky plays many roles, yet Thackeray does not fail to portray her cunning nature through the use of language in her manipulative performances. According to critic, Lisa Jadwin, “Thackeray emphasizes that this discourse of acquiescent duplicity—‘the female double discourse’—is a universal female genderlect spoken by ‘coquettes,’ ‘domestic models,’ and ‘paragons of female virtue’ alike” (663). Certainly, Jadwin, in her mentioning of “domestic models” and “paragons of female virtue” has in mind Amelia, and not Becky. However, it is clear that the term “coquette” undeniably refers to Becky. She flirts with George and Jos, Amelia’s brother, simultaneously right in front of Amelia of whose feelings toward George she is aware. The Coquette’s flirting is not just a girly, innocent act, but also a calculated epilogue of gaining as many rich, marriage candidates as she can. Her egotistical self surfaces during her every show, yet all who surround her, especially those who are directly betrayed by this paragon of vanity, fail to notice the blemishes. Even in the first few chapters of the novel, Becky is already too steeped into her own self-fashioning and self-centeredness that it foreshadows no point of return to virtue. Leila S. May, in her piece titled “The Sociology of Thackeray’s ‘Howling Wilderness’: Selfishness, Secrecy and Performance in Vanity Fair,” suggests that “Psychological egoism therefore rejects the possibility of altruism, if by altruism one means the sacrifice of one’s own interest for the interest of another” (22). Becky seems to enjoy the control she has over others, without caring about somebody else’s feelings. Her cynical obsession with money lies beneath all her actions as a major cause.

As the novel progresses, the reader is expected to understand the behavioral mode without invasions into Becky’s mind, which also turns out to be unnecessary because both she and the reader become more efficient. Sometimes the words alone show the performance, but Thackeray usually accompanies them with non-sentimental descriptions. Now that both the character and the reader are masters in their roles, Thackeray describes language merely in terms of sound: “she dropped her voice,” “said Rebecca,” or “Becky thought” (352). This creates a sharp contrast between what’s visible and audible in Becky, and what goes on in other characters’ minds, whose behaviors are less controlled and calculated. Some of the characters are after riches and status, but none of them has her desires, determination, wits, and cold-hearted nature. Her mind is saturated with the notion of accumulation of wealth or at least the appearance of it. “To achieve these goals” and May continues, “each organism becomes a dissembler, and each performance is a weapon—offensive or defensive—in a larger armamentarium” (33). Most of Becky’s plans harm and offend many of the characters in the novel, but at the same time, her actions are a defense mechanism for her confined self—in her separation from the nobles.

Moreover, Becky’s performances continue and merge the highly professional acting, singing, and dancing with her continuous personal performance, but of course, that professionalism is relative. Thackeray depicts this when showing Becky’s attitude to the professional artists engaged to entertain the upper circles of London. Much later in the novel, she discusses performance with Lord Steyne. The connection between the use of art in human relations and aesthetic effort has already been made clear, by now, in the case of Becky. She has entered the great world of vanity and fashion, and she had begun to perform, by singing to a little group at a party given by the Prince of Peterwardin, with Lord Steyn (Thackeray 586). On one occasion, she tells Steyne, “I would rather be a parson’s wife, and teach a Sunday School than this . . . O how much grayer it would be to wear spangles and trousers, and dance before a booth at a fair” (Thackeray 589). She uses for effect an absolutely honest view, which comes up again when the reader sees her resilience and adaptability in Bohemian society. She confides a genuine boredom, but the confiding is a performance: “She used to tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her artless way—they amused him” (Thackeray 589). Becky is clever enough to use even truth-telling artfully. Her performance not only exploits and enjoys truth and candor, but it has a subtle impact.

The characters in Vanity Fair are involved in performance in many ways, as actors, actresses, singers, and audience. Becky Sharp is the ultimate performer in the novel and the epitome of vanity. Her constant strive for social status desensitizes her to any kind of emotion. Thackeray makes it clear that Becky needs all her arts in “the great world,” and that great world while demanding entertainment, sucks her into its glitz and glamour, vanity and commodities. Becky seldom does anything disinterestedly—everything is calculated and is done for profit. Her egoism is most apparent in the beginning of the novel and even left uncommented by the narrator toward its end. Thackeray then shows performance as including the dramatic sense, the desire to project, to win, to be admired by an audience within and without. Becky’s audience within is her own self-possessed essence, which displays the ensnaring and uncommon performance of her own passions. All the irony and cynicism, the obsessed urge for worldliness, and the scorn of fools, gives this note a deeper compassion: “Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or having it, is satisfied?” (809).

Works Cited

Jadwin, Lisa. “The Seductiveness of Female Duplicity in Vanity Fair.” Studies in

English Literature 1500-1900 32.4 (1992): 663-87. Print.

Lindner, Christopher. “Thackeray’s Gourmand: Carnivals of Consumption in Vanity

Fair.” Modern Philology 99.4 (2002): 564-81. Print.

May, Leila S. “The Sociology of Thackeray’s ‘Howling Wilderness’: Selfishness,

Secrecy and Performance in Vanity Fair.” Modern Language Studies 37.1 (2007):

18-41. Print.

McCuskey, Brian. “Fetishizing the Flunkey: Thackeray and the Uses of Deviance.”

NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 32.3 (1999): 384-400. Print.

Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero. Ed. John Carey.

New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.