Representation Of The Commodified Family In Vanity Fair

In his masterpiece Vanity Fair, Thackeray successfully presents a vivid panorama of British society under consumerism in the 19 th century, when commodities kept circulating and being consumed nonstop. Thackeray's severe criticisms of commodity fetishism, as well as his sincere wish for beauty and sincerity, are incisively shown through his depiction.Through a text-based analysis of Vanity Fair, this thesis mainly focuses on the commodified family relationships between husband and wife, father and child, and tries to expound how Thackeray presents commodity fetish within family and what the effects of the commodification. The society Thackeray depicts is full of tricks and manipulations like a real market, where anything, even living people, can be purchased like commodities. When people become more and more dependent on the commodities to express or to signify themselves, they gradually lose their own identities and degrade to subordinate to the inanimate commodities. Worse still, the interpersonal relationships, including the family relationships, have been greatly reified. Marriage becomes a way to acquire properties and possessions, as well as a path to climb on the social ladder. What is left between father and child is cajolement, enslavement, or estrangement. In their pursuit of instant contentment from consumption, people are either warped body and soul or are emasculated, and women are marginalized. And eventually people are alienated in their own illusions constructed by the colorful commodities. What is left in people's lives in the end is nothing but endless isolation. Therefore, through the examination of family relationships in the novel, the author's critical thinking about the Victorian days and the survival crisis of the whole society both physically and mentally are disclosed thoroughly.