William M Thackeray (1811-1863).ppt

1、William M Thackeray （1811-1863）,Teaching objectives: knowing Thackerays life, literary career, the background influencing his creation, his place, works and contributions,Teaching contents:,1. Life 2. Major works 3. A Brief Analysis of Vanity Fair 3.1 The plot 3.2 The themes 4. Thackerays style 4.1

2、A comparison between Thackerays and Dickens 4.2 His points of view,1. Life,Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India, where his father held the high rank of secretary to the board of revenue in the British East India Company. Williams father died in 1815, which caused his mother to decide to return Will

3、iam to England in 1816 (she remained in India). Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and then at Charterhouse School. He disliked Charterhouse, parodying it in his later fiction as Slaughterhouse. (Nevertheless Thackeray was honored in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument aft

4、er his death.) Illness in his last year there postponed his matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge, until February 1829. Never too keen on academic studies, he left the University in 1830, though some of his earliest writing appeared in university publications .He travelled for some time on the

5、 continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple, but soon gave that up. On reaching the age of 21 he came into his inheritance but he squandered much of it on gambling and by funding two unsuccessful newspapers, The Natio

6、nal 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. Forced to consider a profession to support himself, he turned first to art, which he studied in Paris, but did not pursue it except in later years as the

7、illustrator of some of his own novels and other writings.,Anne Becher and her son William Makepeace Thackeray, c.1813,Caricature of Thackeray by Thackeray,Thackerays years of semi-idleness ended after he met and, on 20 August 1836 married Isabella Gethin Shawe (18161893). Tragedy struck in his perso

8、nal life as his wife succumbed to depression after the birth of their third child in 1840. In the early 1840s, Thackeray had some success with two travel books, but the work that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which first appeared in serialized installments beginning in Janua

9、ry 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had become a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies he satirized; they hailed him as the equal of Dickens. On 23 December 1863, after returning from dining out and before dressing for bed, Thackeray suffered a stroke

10、and was found dead on his bed in the morning. His death at the age of fifty-two was entirely unexpected, and shocked his family, friends, and reading public. An estimated 7000 people attended his funeral at Kensington Gardens. He was buried on 29 December at Kensal Green Cemetery, and a memorial bus

11、t sculpted by Marochetti can be found in Westminster Abbey.,Kensal Green Cemetery where William M. Thackeray was buried.,2. Major works,The Book of Snobs（1846-1847） Vanity Fair（1847-1848） The History of Pendennis（1849-1850） The History of Henry Esmond, Esquire（1852） The Newcomes（1854-1855） The Virgi

12、nians（1858-1859）,3. A Brief Analysis of Vanity Fair,3.1 Main characters Rebecca (Becky) Sharp: orphan Joseph Sedley: Amelias brother Sir Pitt Crawley: an aristocrat Captain Rawdon Crawley: son of Sir Crawley Amelia Sedley: Beckys schoolmate George Osborne: Amelias childhood sweetheart, later killed

13、in a battle Lord Steyne: a wealthy gentleman William Dobbin: a devoted friend of George Osbornes and Amelias lifelong admirer,3.2 The plot,Vanity Fair, or A Novel without a Hero, gives a panoramic view of English society in early 19th century which the novelist compares with the Vanity Fair describe

14、d in Bunyans book Pilgrims Progress: “a fair wherein are sold all sorts of vanity”. The novel traces chiefly the lifelong careers of its two heroines, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, beginning from their graduation from their school. Becky, a poor orphan who fails to capture Amelias brother Joseph fo

15、r a husband, goes to serve as governess in Sir Pitt Crawleys household and marries the baronets son, Captain Rawdon Crawley, who is soon enough disinherited by his wealthy old aunt for marrying the penniless girl. Amelia Sedley married her childhood sweetheart George Osborne against his fathers wish

16、es and the rich old man threatens to disinherit the son.,/Soon British troops are sent to Belgium to join the fighting against Napoleon, and George Osborne and Rawdon Crawley both proceed to Brussels as officers in the army and Amelia and Becky accompany them there. /George makes love to Becky at a

17、ball and proposes to elope with her, but the battle of Waterloo intervenes and George is killed at action. / Amelia is consoled with the birth of a son George but, still unreconciled to her wealthy father-in-law, she lives on in great poverty. /Becky and her husband Rawdon live for some time in Pari

18、s where he gets a bad name for cheating in gambling. They return to London and “live on nothing a year, and then Beckys flirting with the wealthy Lord Steyne are discovered by Rawdon who challenges the aristocrat to a duel. The quarrel is patched up and Rawdon gets a job in the West Indies, and Beck

19、y leaves England to wander aimlessly on the European Continent. Finally Becky meets again Amelias brother Joseph and lives with him and gets his life insurance upon his death, while Amelia eventually marries Dobbin, a devoted friend of George Osbornes and her lifelong admirer.,3.2 The Themes,As the

20、title suggests, this is a book about Vanity Fair. The term “Vanity Fair” is apparently taken from John Bunyans famous allegory The Pilgrims Progress, which Christian and his friend Faith have to pass on their way to the celestial city From the subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, we are enlightened abo

21、ut the world it depicts. As a novel without heroes, it can only mean: 1) In this novel there is no exactly positive character, that is to say, this is a world full of bad or faulty people. No one here is really good enough to be a hero. The world or society here is corrupted. 2) This is a novel not

22、about some particular person but about a societythe upper middle class society. The social manners, made up of individual behaviors, become the predominant concern, and the general impression is that of noisy, whirling commotion, and 3)It can be a book about women instead of men. Evidence is found i

23、n the absolute domination of the stage by the major characters: Becky Sharp and her foil Amelia. They, particularly Becky, are the heroines at the centre of life while all the male characters are but means and tools in their climb or search for position and money.,The novel as a whole shows Thackera

24、y as a great satirist who paints vivid picture of the egoistic, hypocritical and money-grabbing English society of the first half of the 19th century and produces excellent portraitures of the major figures in his story, especially that of Becky Sharp.,4. Thackerays style,4.1 A comparison between Th

25、ackeray and Dickens The main features of Thackerays work can best be found in comparison with those of his contemporary, Charles Dickens. Though writing about the same time, Thackeray differs from the latter in some aspects. First, his criticism of the society is seldom directed at the inhuman socia

26、l institution and corrupted government which bring great misery and suffering to the poor working class, as is shown in Dickens works. What Thackeray criticizes is the social moral that makes up the society, not the political structure and organizations that run the society. To him, the society is d

27、iseased because it is morally corrupted, because most people are money-oriented. To obtain money and the comfort and luxury it brings, they take every means to fight and to cheat each other.,Besides, unlike Dickens who has a firm belief in the honesty and respectability of the working class, Thacker

28、ay criticism embraces people of all social strata. Though the world he depicts is predominantly that of the upper-middle class in the early 19th century-with its whirling ballrooms, noisy parties, heavily curtained bedrooms. Elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen at card-tables and billiard rooms, f

29、lirting or gambling, where money is made or lost, marriages are contracted, the ambitions are thwarted and the stupid favoredhis social-climbers and snobs and money-grabbers can be found in any class.,4.2 His points of view,Thackeray was naturally a man of a gracious and lovable personality. Although the early separation from his mother, exclusion from his class as a ruined young man, and an unfortunate marriage