A Book Report on Vanity Fair

Name: Class: Date:

Author: William M. Thackeray

Publisher: 航空工业出版社 Place of publication: 北京 Time of publication: 2007

Summary:

Amelia Sedley and Rebecca Sharn were good friends, and they had completed their studies. They were preparing to depart for Amelia’s house in Russell Square and to live out their lives in “Vanity Fair”. Rebecca was an orphan; she was poor but very beautiful and ingenious. Amelia is the daughter of a rich City merchant. Rebecca was longing for the life of upper class and she took advantages of her beauty and intelligence to make it. In 1815, the two girls got married. Rebecca made full use of her husband Rawdon to meet many famous nobles in order to enter the Vanity Fair. In the meantime, Amelia was enjoying her newlywed with her husband George. However, the Battle of Waterloo made Amelia become widow and the two girls’ fates had begun to change. Rawdon had clearly known Rebecca’s voracity and departed from her. Rebecca found her place in society almost in the end. At the end of the story, Amelia led a happy life and Rebecca lost everything.

Thoughts and feelings:

There is a sentence that I learn from Vanity Fair: Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read -- who had the habits and the cunning of a boor; who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was disgusting and foul; and yet in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the man of most brilliant genius or spotless virtue. I think some people in this book are just behaving like this.

After read Vanity Fair I have learnt that in the 18th century, the British were crazy for fame and fortune. They all hoped to enter into the Vanity Fair. But, I do hate the Vanity Fair, because in Vanity Fair, everyone exchanges with other people with masks. What they have seen is also not true. To tell you the truth, I look down upon Rebecca. She has been polluted by the Vanity Fair. I wonder if she ever regards Amelia as her best friend and shows her true care to Amelia. I have to admit that Rebecca is very ingenious. She knows how to attract men’s attention and lies easily and intelligently to get her way. Nearly everything she does is with the intention to secure a stable position for her. Maybe, Rebecca just wants to live a rich life, but the method is wrong and I think she deserves the ending.

第二篇：名利场读书报告 Book Report on Vanity Fair

Book Report on Vanity Fair The author of Vanity Fair , William Makepeace Thackeray , is born in Calcutta in 1811. After a major financial loss, he is forced to earn his living by writing . The novel Vanity Fair which is a financial success , quickly establishes Thackeray's literary reputation.

The story opens at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, where Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley have just completed their studies and are preparing to leave for Amelia's house in Russell Square. Becky is a clever and strong-willed young woman determined to make her way in society, and Amelia Sedley is a tender , simple-minded young girl. At Russell Square, Miss Sharp lures Amelia's brother , Joseph Sedley , a rich civil-servant , and hopes to marry him , but eventually fails . So she leaves this family . Baronet Sir Pitt Crawley invites her to be his daughters' governess . Her behavior at Sir Pitt's house gains the favour of Sir Pitt, who proposes to her after the death of his second wife . However, she tells him that she has already secretly married to his second son, Rawdon Crawley. For some time , Becky acts as a companion of Miss Crawley , Sir Pitt's sister , a rich old woman who initially

wants to give her fortune to Sir Pitt's younger son, Captain

Rawdon Crawley . But the news of their marriage gives out , she is so angry that she changes her will to Rawdon Crawley's elder brother Pitt Crawley.

In the meantime , Amelia's father, John Sedley, is bankrupted , so the marriage between Amelia and George is forbidden by old Mr Osborne , George's father . But George ultimately decides to marry Amelia against his father's will . Suddenly , the Napoleonic Wars are breaking out , so men are dispatched to the battle . However , at a ball in Brussels , George gives Becky a note inviting her to run away with him. The next moring , he is sent to Waterloo, with Captain Crawley and Dobbin . Amelia is so sad but Becky on the other hand , is indifferent about her husband's departure . After the wars end , Captain Crawley survives, but George dies in the battle . While Amelia gives birth to a boy who is also named George , she returns to lead a poor life with her parents . Meanwhile , Dobbin gratually bigins to express his love for Amelia. But she is addicted to George's memory regardless of Dobbin' affections . Sad , he goes to India for many years . Additionally , Becky also has a son, named after his father , but unlike Amelia , Becky is a cold mother . In London , she meets the great Marquess of

Steyne who introduces her to London society . However , the close relationship between them is discovered by Rawdom . He leaves his wife and is sent to an island . He leaves his son in the care of Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane . At this time , Mrs Crawley has lost both husband and reputation.

After twelve years abroad both Joseph Sedley and William Dobbin return to England. Dobbin expresses his unchanged love to Amelia, but she tells him she cannot forget the memory of her dead husband. Soon after old Mr Osborne's death , it is revealed that he has left young George half his large fortune and Amelia a generous annuity .Then Amelia , Joseph , George and Dobbin go on a trip to Germany , where they come across with the poor Becky at a card table . Joseph is attracted by her and wants them to reconciliate . But Dobbin disproves of it , so Amelia quarrels with him . Finally he realizes that he is wasting his love on a woman who lives in the memory of her dead husband , so he leaves her . At this moment, Becky shows Amelia the note that George has given her, asking her to run away with him . This breaks Amelia's idealised image of her husband , so she rushes to Dobbin and expresses her love .

Becky resumes her lure of Joseph Sedley and gains control over him. He eventually dies of a disease and his death

brings her a fortune . In the end Rawdon Crawley dies weeks before his elder brother .

I think Becky Sharp is an excellent woman better than thousands of man . She is poor originally but she has a srong will , even though when the wars are breaking out , she is still optimistic . She has experienced a life up and down . The novel tells us no matter how glorious you are , all return to dust eventually , and perhaps the ordinary life is the truth . But regardless of what a life we lead , we ourselves have chosed the way we live and have experienced the sweetness and bitters all through the way and others have no right to comment .