"For all her energy and wit, Becky is selfish, destructive and ultimately evil". Discuss.

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"For all her energy and wit, Becky is selfish, destructive and ultimately evil". Discuss.

William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair initially gives a bad impression of Rebecca Sharp - amorality, apathy, avarice and "artfulness" are all part of the nasty picture. Indeed, a reader would be forgiven for simply saying "she's evil" or "she's nice" - the narrator's meaning seems so ambiguous, with Becky coming across as a simultaneously likeable but clearly ruthless character. This essay aims to form a more balanced view of Becky.

Indeed, you would certainly be forgiven for forming this opinion of Becky based on a summary of the play. If at first the reader's view of Rebecca is softened slightly by her wit and charisma - especially when compared to the pathetic Amelia Sedley. However, as the book goes on, Rebecca appals the reader with her abandonment of her background, her friends and even her child for her goal of social climbing in Vanity Fair". The latter is possibly the turning point of the reader's view of Becky - the way she completely ignores her own son, Rawdy ("He is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere or has crawled below into the kitchen for companionship"),