1. IntroductionThis part makes a brief introduction to the author Thackeray, his novel Vanity Fair, his life and art, and introduces the heroines in the novel Vanity Fair.Thackeray (1811-1863) was a representative of critical realism in 19th century England. He was born in India in the family of an English official. He was sent back to England for education at Charterhouse School and then at Trinity College in the age of six. In 1831 he used to study law in Middle Temple but finally he gave it up. Then he went to Paris to study painting. In 1833 he work for The National Standard as a proprietor, he both wrote and drew for it. Unfortunately, the failure of an India bank where he had deposited his inherited fortune left him without means. As a result, in order to support his family he turned to journalism for a living. In his early life, Thackeray wrote all kinds of articles, mainly short pieces for journals and relatively slim books. Up to 1847, a series of his satirical sketches were collected in The Book of Snobs. But it was not until the publication of Vanity Fair that the world recognized the appearance of a new novelist of the first rank. Vanity Fair came out in 1847-48, which established his reputation as a novelist. The novel Vanity Fair is regarded as the peak of Thackeray’s literary career. “His realism declined after that. He was somewhat alarmed by the revolutionary movement of 1848 and was not prepared to accept the idea of breaking the existing social structure. Signs of reconciliation with reality can be traced in his later writings. And he drifted two series of lectures and wrote a number ballads and verses (Sun Hanyun,130)” He died of heart disease on December 24, 1863.“Vanity Fair”is the fiction of an English writer who lived in the19th century and named William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair” is the work that makes him famous in literature, which holds the very important position in the English literature and even the world literature. It has succeeded portraying Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley. It tells a story about two women who have different fates with each other. Rebecca is a beautiful woman who lives in the lowest stratum of the society, but has a higher education. The experiences of living in different environment makes her have a distorted disposition. So she tries hard to step into the upper class and aim at fame and wealth blindly. Rebecca is portrayed as a rebellious and cunning young woman determined to make her way in society. Another is kind girl---Amelia, on the contrary, a warm hearted and pure girl lives in a rich family, yearning for love, living a happy life.The title of this work comes from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress meaning “a fair, wherein are sold all sorts vanity”, the author intended to make a vivid picture of the selfish, hypocritical and money-grabbing world of that time. The subtitle of the book is “A Novel without a Hero”. From this we can see that firstly there are no exactly positive characters in a world full of bad and cunning people. Secondly it may hint that this is a novel about women instead of men. Although the subtitle may also imply that there is no real hero in the work, Rebecca and Amelia can be the real heroines of the novel in a way.2. Amelia’s CharacterAs the heroine of this novel, Amelia is a kind and pure woman, many people do not understand why not regard Amelia as a perfect character in this novel. As we can see that she has many traditional virtues, but on the other hand the author also portrayed her as a obedient and passivewoman.2.1 A Kind and Pure AmeliaAmelia is a soft, warm-hearted lady and tender love toward her lover, her friend and all people around her. Besides, she is an innocent girl without any evil tricks in the traditional society.She was born in a rich upper class family, and has chance to receive a good education and grow up healthily and happily. She is treated with all courtesy and mother’s intensive care which shapes her with the disposition of gentility and kindness. Amelia’s presents Mr. Sedly and Mrs. Sedly are very kind people, especially Mr. Sedly. He is kind to Miss Sharp though she is only a poor and ordinary governess from the lowest class in the hierarchical society. And Amelia’Brother Joseph, he is dull and silly, but he is a friendly man to others. And all in all, there are no bad or evil persons in this family. From this we can see that the good family environment makes a significant contribution to Amelia’s characters of kindness.Amelia is kind –hearted to her friend, Rebecca. When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls, which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, “that is must be delightful to have a brother,”and this easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia, for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred. “Not alone,” said Amelia; “you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister-indeed I will.” She regards Rebecca as her best girlfriend though she knows that Rebecca is from the lowest class and even tries her best to help her. And when she knows that Rebecca has done many bad things that are harmful to her, she still chooses to forgive her. So from all these reasons, Amelia is a kind woman.What’s more, Amelia is also a pure and innocent woman. In her mind, it seems that everybody in this world is kind- hearted. For example, Amelia is hard to believe that the head-teacher of her school, Miss Pinkertontreats her well just because her advantageous family conditions and Miss Pinkerton could benefit from her.Amelia yearns for love. She puts all her emotion on Osborne, who comes from a wealthy family, but Osborne in fact is a playboy, he never makes Amelia’s dream of love come true. Yet Amelia still pursuits, “George was her Europe, her emperor, her allied monarchs and august prince regent…he was her sun and moon…when he came to Russel Square, her face lighted up as if she had been sunshine…As soon as the door was shut, she went fluttering to lieutenant George Osborne’s heart as if it was the only natural home for her to nestle in.” Her love for George is so pure and deep. Even after her husband died in the war, she yield to the fate and didn’t get married to other people.2.2 A Obedient and Passive AmeliaAmelia is a traditional woman in the Victorian Times, she is a subordinate, passive and pure, and everything a Victorian lady aspired to be. Amelia is born in a family of the upper middle class but she always lives a long-suffering life, and accepted whatever her husband wanted or did. She can get good education, every luxury she desired and acquired respect through her family’s status. But look at Amelia, she is just like a “Angel in the House”or “queen of the Garden”, like most of housewives, although she has higher education, but she has no ideas about her only life, she just did whatever her husband wanted her to do, to be a good wife, and to be a good mother. “Victorian middle-class girls who aspired to ladyhood were expected to live carefully circumscribed lives while in training for marriage ideally, and if not, a useful old maid---hood” (Rowbotham16).In chapter 57, Amelia accepted money from old Osborne after giving up little George.Her lack of pride stemmed from her being naturally simple and demand of protection, and revealed her suffering, poverty, humility and privations since her marriage. And many women similarly sacrificed themselves, they are subordinate and lacking the courage to resist.Amelia lives a passive life; she lives in the suppression of her home under the protection of her parents. A middle-class young woman was expected to be submissive and virtuous so that one day she would either take care of her husband’s needs and desire or continue to bring up her children. So we can see from the book she regards love as her only life purpose, from she graduated until she gets married with George, she lives a suffering life, she sees a marriage to George as inevitable because it was their parents “order”and because her behavior and her class exemplify her worth as a prominent lady.2.3 A Idealistic and Selfish AmeliaAlthough Thackeray portrays Amelia as a considerate mother, a docile wife, a filial daughter and even a sympathetic woman, there are still a lot of disadvantages of Amelia. She is sometimes as selfish and self-centered as Rebecca, in other words, she lives in her own ideal world and she doesn’t admit something happened around her. For example, Amelia devotes herself to the relationship with her husband George blindly. Like Rebecca, she marries a man who is not able- minded than her. But unlucky she is never aware of her own identity, refuses to admit this fact, accept to whatever her husband wanted or did. on the contrary, Rebecca controls her husband Rawdon Crawley to reshape here own fate.And what’s more she is selfish, subordinate and dependent in her relationship with George and Dobbin. She fell in love with George but she never refuses Dobbin to love her. And there is evidence to prove she is self-centred and she ignores Dobbin’s love for her but never refusesdirectly. Dobbin bought Amelia a piano as a gift, but in her mind the piano is from George, not Dobbin, she treasures the gift unless it was George’ gift. She says, “I value it more than anything I have in the world. Can I do otherwise? Did not the give it to me?”Yet she knows that it was Dobbin sent her the gift but not George sent, “it struck her, with inexpressible pain and mortification. It was not George’s relic. It was valueless now” (Thackeray 2010, 670). She doesn’t like the piano as before when she knows Dobbin sent it to her. Dobbin always keeps Amelia and her son’s company after George died in the war. But he receives only Amelia’s reproach, “it is you who are cruel now. George is my husband, here and in heaven”(Thackeray 2010,671). Her self-deluding makes her to push aside the only friend she has, Dobbin, who really cares her and loves her.3. Rebecca’s CharacterRebecca was born in a poor family, in the lowest class of English society at that time. she takes advantage of her beauty, talent, and anything could help her, in order to enter upper class and live a comfortable life. Thackeray portrays her as a cunning, selfish, hypocritical woman, it is the representative of the snobbish. On the other hand, she is a rebellious and courageous woman. She is a woman who has a strong desire to fame and wealth, struggled to make her way in the society.3.1 A Cunning and Hypocritical RebeccaRebecca Sharp is a classic example of this money –grubbing instinct. Her only aspiration in life is gain wealth and position by any means, through lies, mean actions and unscrupulous speculating with every sacred ideal.Rebecca is a tricky, evil and cunning woman. She has a strong desire to be a rich woman and live a comfortable life. She has enough poor life when she lived with her father, so she realized she must try her best to enter the upper class to live a wealthy life and to be a grand woman with all methods. She does everything: flatter, betray and spoil other people. When in Amelia’s home, she knows everyone’s disposition and hobbies quickly, and tries to be close to everyone in Amelia’s home. She gets everyone’s love very soon. But all these she does is to make her way to enter the upper class, she even wants to marry Joseph, Amelia’s stupid brother, she pretends to fall in love with him and teases him, but finally she failed. Then she takes advantage of her wisdom to win the old lady -- Miss Crawley’s favor, only because she wants to marry Miss Crawley’s nephew, she thinks that Crawley could inherit a big fortune from his aunt.Rebec ca’father is a poor painter, and her mother works as an opera-girl. Although her mother’s profession doesn’t seem to be respected, it is exactly a work that her mother supports their family by her own labor. But as for Rebecca, she never bring up that her mother is an opera- girl, it seems to bring humiliations to her. She just said her grandma’s family was very prominent. What’s more, when she and her husband came back England from France, they have no income at all, but they use the finest wine to treat people. And Rebecca pretends herself to be a upper class woman, she always dressed in latest fashion, with expensive jewelry, rambling the park with some rich people. All these turn out that Rebecca is a hypocritical woman; she wants to be rich, and she fully realized, she must try her best and use every means to enter the upper class of the society, so that she can live a wealthy life and have much money in this kind of society.3.2 A Courageous and Competent RebeccaRebecca was born in a very poor family, in the lowest class of society. And her parents died when she was very young and they didn’t leave any property to her. We can know that she has already met a lot of difficulties when she was a child. But she never yielded to such bitter days; instead she struggled in a hypocritical world. It turns out that Rebecca is active, courageous in such a cruel society.She thinks that her talent and beauty were not worse than the other girls, so she should have the same right as them to pursue a comfortable life. But things are not like that, she doesn’t get due respect. In order to make a living, she studied in a Pinkerton female school, and at the same time she needs to work to feed herself. In the school, she suffered from a lot discrimination by those children who are from a rich upper class family, just because she was born in a poor lowest class family. A long with these discriminations and difficulties, she realized nobody could help her but herself, she becomes more and more courageous to face those difficulties in her life and make plans for her future. She tries to become excellent as the other girls, she has inherited her father’s artistic talent and her mother’s performing arts, and also has the independent ability to life. All these make other girls from look at her with new eyes. From the other side can also be seen that she is courageous and rebellious. Rebecca changes the traditional marriage and family patterns that husband is a controller while wife should be obedient. She makes the marriage as a stepping stone, she flatters the others, also causes the others to flatter her. Her marriage can only contribute to her road of getting wealthy.At the same time, hard life makes her become an intelligent and competent woman. In addition to her wicked tricks, we can see that she can think of all kinds of means on her way to step into the upper society.When she and Rawdon lives a year in Paris, they don’t have income, Rebecca thinks of different ways to borrow money. It is she who spreadthe rumor that Rawdon has inherited the large a lot of money from hisrich aunt, so that they can get out of Paris without paying any debts, since she has ordered a newly decorated apartment against her return.It is she who settles for a percentage of Rawdon’s debt in England,so that he may return to London for a fresh start. This can turn outshe is very competent and intelligent.3.3 An Invincible and Adventurous RebeccaRebecca is different from the obedient and passive Victorian women, she is invincible and venturous. In order to please Miss Crawley, she spent two weeks in the hospital accompanying Miss Crawley. Although the job is busy and tired, she maintains her composure. And when her husband Crawley discovers the illicit between Rebecca and Lord Steyne, she is subjected to the social criticism and contempt, she is rebuffed everywhere, but never yield. Whenever she wants to find a shelter for herself, the society smashes it completely, and she has to start from the very beginning. Although it is really difficult for a woman, she still tries to win the good reputation for herself and be a good upper class woman. We are happy to see that she recovers herself in the end, and continuously struggle for gaining what she wants. All the things turn out she is invincible and ambitious.In order to achieve her life goals, she flirts with people who can control the society and causes people flirts with her too. She has to do something adventurous to pay for her means. Marriage for Rebecca is more an economic business venture than a sentimental union. She staked her marriage to pave her way to enter the upper class. Women should be passive and obedient in England that time, however Rebecca is an independent woman.She does everything for herself, she is an smart woman who insists on pursuing independence and insists on her own judgment. She is a new woman in Victorian times, she dares to challenge the world. From these it turns out that she is ambitious and adventurous.4. The Comparison between the Two Women CharactersAs Amelia is a kind, pure, but obedient and passive woman. Rebecca is a cunning, evil, but courageous, and intelligent woman. The two women seem to have many differences from each other. What causes these differences? As the saying goes, people from different class, they will be different. Different family and education leads to their different ways of living and different attitudes to life.4.1 Different BackgroundsRebecca and Amelia are both Pinkerton school’s students, but their family education is totally different. They are from different backgrounds and receive different educations, which is also decisive in their future behaviors.Amelia’s living environment is stable; she was born in a rich family in the upper society. Since she is from upper society, girls in Pinkerton all like her, they think Amelia is kind like an angel. All the people around her give her love, her parents and brothers, friends and servants. So Amelia thinks the world is so beautiful, she couldn’t find any defects. She couldn’t see the essence of the society live in such a superior life, and can’t adapt to the changes of social environment. When her family ruined, she even dares to face the reality, she only remembers theconformable life before, living in her own memory. It turns out she is passive and obedient.On the contrary, Rebecca was born in a very poor family, in the lowest class of society. And her parents died when she was very young and they didn’t leave any property to her. Because of her humble social status, she lives a poor and discriminatory life. We can know that she has already met a lot of difficulties when she was a child. However the hypocoristic society makes her have such a sense that she should struggle to step into the upper society, so that she can live a comfortable life. The poor life makes her a strong and rebellious woman.4.2 Different Attitudes to LoveAmelia is a typical and traditional Victorian woman. Love is one of the most important things for her, she tries her best to love her husband, considers her husband as her Europe, her King, her Sun and her Moon. She is a typical image as an understanding wife in a patriarchal society, her husband and children seem to be all her life. She relies on George, but George is a dandy who can’t bring her ideal happiness. Even when her husband died in the war, a lot of men love her, but she refuses their love. She said “George is my husband, he, here and in heaven”. Amelia‘s loyalty and long, blind devotion to her husband amount almost to stupidity. She regards loyal love and sweet family to be the only goal of her life.For the love, Rebecca is a member of the utilitarian school. In life she always shows a shrewd cunning, seek nothing but profits only, her life goal is to enter the upper class. She takes advantages of her beauty, intelligence and all the conditions she own to help her achieve her goal. Her marriage is not a exception. She doesn’t love anyone except herself.She wants to marry Joseph, Amelia’s stupid brother, she pretends to fall in love with him and teases him, but finally she failed. Then she takes advantage of her wisdom to win the old lady -- Miss Crawley’s favor, only because she wants to marry Miss Crawley’s nephew, she thinks that Crawley could inherit a big fortune from his aunt. She makes the marriage as a stepping stone, she flatters the others, also causes the others to flatter her. Her marriage can only contribute to her road of getting wealthy. Rebecca never seeks the true love, “love” for her is only a tool to help her get the money and fame, occupy a space for her in the upper society. "Love" in Rebecca’s life dictionary was coupled with the "practical", "practical love" helps her finally gain fame and fortune, but she has lost the worthwhile things that fame and fortune never can replace.4.3 Different Attitudes to Difficulties and Fate.Amelia is a weak, innocent woman, born in a superior family, she seems to love everyone around her and others love her too. Fate for her seems to be arranged already, to be a good woman, then a good wife, finally a good mother. Although she has higher education, she doesn’t know how to face difficulties and fight with fate. When her family ruined, she still lost in her ideal dream. She is a mediocre woman, unable to resist the fate, pursuing nothing but h er own “true love” blindly.“love” is the life goal for Amelia, devoting her whole life to her husband and son. When she was young, she depends on her parents, when she gets married, she depends on her husband. When her husband died in the war, she depends on Dobbin who loves her from the very beginning but she never takes any notice. From she graduated until she gets married with Dobbin at last, she lives in a obedient and suffering life. She gets lost in her ideal dream, relies her fate on other people.Rebecca is an invincible and independent image; We can see that she has already met a lot of difficulties when she was a child. But she never yielded to such bitter days, instead she struggled in a hypocritical world. It turns out that Rebecca is active, courageous in such a cruel society.We can see that fate never treats her well, but she accepts those unfairness bravely instead of complain about her difficulties. Doesn’t like Amelia, she was born in a poor background. She can only rely on herself. Although on her way perusing the rich life, she tricks other people, flirting with men, it turns out she is venturous and brave in such a cruel society. At the end, she changes her fate and proves her abilities to others. It would never be possible to achieve her goal if were not Rebecca’s steady struggle with her fate by holding positive attitude whenever she meets difficulties.5. ConclusionThis is a novel without a hero; from the above analysis we can see that both Amelia and Rebecca have their advantages and disadvantages. Amelia is kind and pure but sometimes she is selfish and obedient. Rebecca is courageous and competent but on the other side she is cunning and evil. According to the characteristics of British society in the early nineteenth century, the different images of the two women are the chief representatives of the women of that time, and both are the victims of the society only in different ways; they all struggle to make their ways in such a cruel society at that time.It gives a conclusion at last, different living environments leads to different characters, and the social reality leads to different fates. You can’t choose your birth environments, but you should try your best to be a person with goodcharacters. Therefore it provokes people especially women to contemplate how women should live their lives.In fact, women should be independent, no matter what society they live in. they need to establish their own goals and social circles, so that they are not passive and obedient to their families and they can live a more colorful life. Rebecca and Amelia just embody their value through financial dependence on men, either utilizing them or succumbing to them.A good mentality is also important for women, which is not only refers to a good understanding of human world, but also refers to the positive attitudes to difficulties and fate. Never yield to fate and difficulties, to be strong-minded , to live simply, to think quietly. So women should live positively and struggle actively against difficulties and unfair fate. That is why she appears more positive than Amelia and is never defeated by those difficulties in her unfair fate.Besides, no matter in which ages, girls should be a kind and pure like Amelia. A cunning and evil girl like Rebecca can never be imitated. Girls should own a beautiful heart, to be a warm-hearted woman, to love others; therefore other people will also love you. Let the past pass, it is no use to blame yourself or others. In the novel, Amelia can forgive Rebecca’s mistakes and regard Rebecca as her friend. It can be seen that she is very kind just like an angel.Finally women are supposed to live fully and confidently, even when life is bitter for her. Though Rebecca was born in a poor family, she never lost her confidence. However Amelia should be confident like Rebecca, to pursue her true life instead of submitting to fate.Different living environment leads to different characters, and the social reality leads to different fates. No matter what kind of environments we were born, people should try to make a difference. We should be a kind and pure girl like Amelia, and be a rebellious, courageous,smart girl like Rebecca. If I was a poor girl like Rebecca, I will try my best to make a different. Although it will be difficult to make progress, but I think it is worth a try. If I were a rich girl like Amelia, I will try tomake a better use of this property instead of enjoying and wasting it. 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