Frenchness as the Other in Vanity Fair

Thackeray reiterates the British literary conventions that contrast artless Britishness with artificial Frenchness and attribute hypocrisy, duplicity, and sexual degradation to the Other, so Becky is constantly identified with the deceptiveness of France. As a symbol of Napoleon’s propaganda that a career should be open to all talents regardless of birth, Becky struggles to climb the social ladder by means of her superb artistic talents, threatening the established British social hierarchy. However, at the height of success she tumbles down the ladder due to the dishonest nature of her artistic talents, which are presented as something characteristically French that should be ostracized from the British gentility. Amelia’s letters representing British sentimental novels can not attract George nor the reader’s attention, and thus are left out of the novel. Amelia realizes the truth about George and secures Dobbin only with the help of Becky's supreme stroke of artistic skill. Since Amelia is revealed to be a destructive, yet tender parasite that throttles Dobbin, the moral integrity of Britishness constructed of her artlessness becomes shaky. George’s letter to Mr. Osborne written just before the battle of Waterloo also problematizes Thackeray’s insistent effort to define Britishness through discrediting Frenchness as deception. The great red seal with the sham coat of arms that Mr. Osborne stole from a ducal family is robbed from George’s dead body. Thackeray’s revelation of the double robbery is intended to mock the patriotic rhetoric that glorifies George as a hero and to expose the deceptive nature of the simplicity and honesty of Britishness of which Mr. Osborne boasts. Though Thackeray criticizes Becky’s writings for taking advantage of art for commercial profits, he must acknowledge that he is also dependent on the Victorian publication, where novels were produced as though in factory assembly-lines for profit. The ultimate enlightenment comes with the awareness that the idea of Britishness has become unstable during the mid-Victorian period with the influx of alien cultures into Britain, which continually interacted with Europe and Colonies.