Vanity Fair 名利场 英文简介 读后感 故事梗概

Vanity Fair:

A Novel without a Hero is written by William Makepeace Thackeray. This novel tells the lives of two starkly contrasted girls: Becky Sharp, orphaned and poor but ingenious, and Amelia Sedley, sheltered daughter of a rich city merchant. They two meet at Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for young ladies, the former driven by social ambition, while the latter by her delicate heart. And it satirizes the society in early 19th-century Britain. The book gives me an entire view of the life which is pretty extravagant. It tells us that Becky is a beautiful, strong-willed and cunning young woman who is determined to make her way to the upper society. She makes every possible effort by hooking or by crooking to get rid of poverty. And she failed in the end. By contrast, Amelia Sedley is a good-natured, loveable though simple-minded young girl. She does not understand what life is. And she is portrayed by her husband and friend Becky. She is such a coward that she does not run counter to her fate and always accepts the reality quite contently as it is. She is so pitiful and conventional. Yet God blesses her, she comes across a perfect man Dobbin and gets married to him at last.

After finished reading, I found that a vanity fair is a hypocritical, commercial and money-grabbing aristocratic society. Although the book was written in the 19th century, it still can reflect the reality nowadays. In our society, some people are unable to see things clearly. They are confused because their minds are full of wealth, power, vanity and so on. And they become slaves of vanity eventually. Since vanity fair is a trap that everyone is likely to step into, we had better be careful when we are pursuing something.