The Discipline and Significance of Form in Vanity Fair
Almost all critics of Vanity Fair have assumed that Thackeray's novel had no very carefully worked out structure and have been content to make rather general comments on the form of the novel: it was loosely improvised along the line of a contrast between Becky and Amelia. J. Y. T. Greig, for example, believes that Thackeray not only lacked Fielding's ability to work out a highly detailed plot but also suffered from the additional handicap of being forced to compose hurriedly for monthly serialization. To Greig, “Vanity Fair is unified and shapely up to and including the episodes of Brussels and the Battle of Waterloo: for although it contains two heroines, the adventures and sufferings of the one are causally related to the adventures and sufferings of the other. It becomes unified and shapely again after Chapter xliii (Pumpernickel), and for the same reason. But in between—roughly 300 pages—the plot of the first and last sections of the book is suspended, and the unity of the novel disappears.”