BECKY: THE ENDING
After the confrontation scene with Rawdon and Lord Steyne, Becky
undergoes a social and financial degradation on the Continent. At
first, she tries valiantly to re-establish herself in respectable
English society, even though she is snubbed by English ladies.
Generally, once she finds a niche for herself, she is rejected because
of her
past, her reputation, and the persecution of Steyne's hirelings. In
this regard, she is a victim. Her need for excitement and attention
also contributes to her failure; taken under the wing of the eminently
respectable Mrs. Eagles, she grows bored, and "the life of humdrum
virtue grew utterly tedious to her before long" (page 767). For
stimulation, she practices her wiles on young Mr. Eagles on holiday
from Cambridge, and Mrs. Eagles asks to her leave.
Becky's sharing an apartment with a female friend was
unsuccessful, but she enjoyed living in a boarding house, because
"Becky loved society and, indeed, could no more exist without it than
an opium-eater without his dram" (page 767). As she is forced to move
from one place to another, one style of life to another, one set of
companions to another, she deteriorates into "a perfect Bohemian ere
long, herding with people whom it would make your hair stand on end to
meet" (page 769). Becky sinks back into the demimonde. When men are forward
with her, she reflects that they would not have dared to treat her so
if Rawdon were present and misses his protection Reading between the
lines, we see that Becky travels with swindlers, disgraced gentlemen,
and pseudo-gentlemen and may have sold her sexual favors. Thackeray
repeats shocking rumors about her but confirms none of them. When she
turns up in Pumpernickel, she is somewhat slatternly in dress, gambles,
and drinks, behavior that would have shocked respectable society and
Thackeray's readers. Her "wild and roving nature" (page 777) suits her
for this life.
Ever the opportunist, Becky seeks to ingratiate herself
with Jos and Amelia. Nevertheless, Amelia's frankness and kindness seen
to touch her: "She returned Emmy's caresses and kind speeches with
something like gratitude, and an emotion which, if it was not lasting,
for a moment was almost genuine" (page 786). Do the words "something
like gratitude" and an "almost genuine" emotion suggest anything about
Becky's nature and her capacity for friendship? It is jarring to Becky
to have to lie immediately to Amelia, though she unhesitatingly lies
about her son.
She appreciates and enjoys the comfort and simplicity
of the Sedley household, for "wanderer as she was by force and
inclination, there were moments when rest was pleasant to her" (page
803). When Dobbin urges Amelia not to admit Becky into her household,
Becky feels no animosity toward him, because he is acting openly in a
fair fight. She is even able to appreciate his virtues and deprecate
Amelia's treatment of him. When Dobbin leaves, she acts to keep him for
Amelia; she writes a note asking him to stay and later shows Amelia
George's note. Her action does not cause Amelia to call back Dobbin,
because she has already summoned him; however, it is important in
forcing or perhaps allowing Amelia to face the truth of George.
This part of her history and behavior is consistent
with Becky's characterization from her first appearance at Miss
Pinkerton's school until the disastrous confrontation. Does Thackeray
change her characterization and/or his attitude toward her in the last
section of the novel, as many readers believe?
BECKY'S CHARACTERIZATION
In the last part of the novel, does Thackeray
unexpectedly present a darker or evil Becky? If so, why the sudden
change? Was he perhaps distressed at how many readers were attracted to
Becky? or disconcerted at how much he himself was drawn to her
bohemianism? or nervous about possible outcries from his squeamish
public? If her characterization does not change suddenly, then Becky's
destructiveness and viciousness must have been present all along.
What might account for a change in Becky (assuming she
does change)? Circumstances, such as her youth, her early
opportunities, her drive for respectability and social success, might
have inhibited the expression of her darker side. After her social
fall, she leads an increasingly degraded life. Marginalized socially,
she consorts with social outcasts, is driven by economic need, and
perhaps finds life more difficult with age. Under the pressures of a
bohemian, demimonde life, her malevolence might well emerge. Other
explanations are possible; I offer this one as a stimulus for your
thinking, not to limit you to it.
Those who see a change point to the narrator's
comparison of
Becky to the Siren, which they claim presents her in a harsher light
than before. Certainly Becky appears as repulsively malevolent and
horrifyingly dangerous in this passage:
In describing this Siren, singing and smiling,
coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers
all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness and showed the
monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down
under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and
twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or
curling round corpses; but above the waterline, I ask, has not
everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most
squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however,
the Siren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the
water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look
into it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a
rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon
to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink into
their native element, depend on it, those mermaids are about no good,
and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling
and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is
out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well employed, and
that the less that is said about her doings is in fact the better.
(pages 759-60)
Whether the characterization of Becky as Siren is
consistent with the younger Becky, it is certainly consistent with the
perhaps-murderous Becky of the last pages. Does she murder Jos? The
text is ambiguous, deliberately so. There is no hard evidence against
her, merely Jos's terror of her, her greed for money manifested in her
unsuccessful speculations with his money, and the insurance company's
suspicions. Her potential for murder is hinted at in her triumph at
Steyne's party, where she plays Clytemnestra so convincingly that the
audience is horrified. Steyne believes she could commit murder, as
Clytemnestra did.
If the text is ambiguous about Jos's death, the
illustration of Jos's last conversation with Dobbin is not. Though in
the text Becky is not present, in the drawing she is lurking in
darkness, holding a barely visible cup (suggesting poison?), with a
malevolent expression on her face. This drawing depicts Becky's
second appearance as Clytemnestra.
Becky first appears as Clytemnestra in the charades at Lord Steyne's
party and is a great success in fashionable society. In her first
appearance as Clytemnestra, she is demure and innocent, modestly
looking down while holding a knife, seemingly under the protection of
her husband, who towers over her. Has she changed drastically since
that party, or was her demure manner part of her performance, with the
knife expressing her true nature?
Becky's last appearance is as a virtuous, respectable matron sitting
behind a booth, to the consternation of Amelia and Dobbin, who recoil
from her. What impression does the drawing of this incident, which is
reproduced in your text, make? Consider Becky's expression and body
language. Is this an appropriate last appearance by Becky?
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