WATERLOO
At Brussels, Becky is a social success and moves in the
highest military circles, though there is a suggestion of impropriety
in the Crawleys' sharing a suite with General Tufto, in which their
rooms are "very
close indeed to those of the General" (page 333, chapter XXIX).
Ever the social
climbing snob and egotist, George pursues her and imagines he has made
a conquest. At the Opera, he does not see the "queerest, knowingest
look" Becky gives
him, communicating that she is making a fool of the General, because
George is "lost in pompous admiration of his own irresistible powers of
pleasing" (page 331, chapter XXIX).
 Honest Dobbin, neither a snob nor an egotist, sees the
truth about Becky, who dislikes and fears him because of his clear
vision and her inability to manipulate
him. He sees her as a humbug who "writhes and twists about like a
snake. All the time she was here, didn't you see, George, how she was
acting at the General over the way?" (chapter
XXIX, page 332). Thackeray uses the snake image to describe
the note "coiled like a snake" in the bouquet George hands
Becky (page 338, chapter XXIX) and to describe Becky as
a siren (pages 759-60, chapter LXIV). The snake image is also
associated with Becky in two initial drawings: Becky as siren in
Chapter LXIV and Becky as snake in Chapter XIV (she is
snaking her way into Miss Crawley's favor).
 The call to battle comes during the ball. Thackeray
chooses to describe, not the heroics and gallantry of a battle which
determined the fate of Europe and England, but the varied reactions of
civilians, soldiers setting off for battle and soldiers returned from
battle. His anti-heroic attitude is also reflected in the initial
drawing for
Chapter XXX. A blind man (the military and the politicians) is about to
fall into a stream (a pun on Waterloo). Might the drawing also
apply to Thackeray, who professes an inability to describe battle, as
well as apply to civilians, who have
no idea what is happening on the battlefield? Is it ironic
that a church stands in the background?
By and large, the civilians and soldiers in Brussels
are selfish, venal, cowardly, hypocritical, and/or snobbish:
- George writes his father a farewell letter
in which love is mixed with pride, snobbery (the pretentious seal which
the Osbornes had appropriated), and selfishness. He temporarily feels
regret at having squandered his money because Amelia will be left in
poverty if he dies and at his plan
to run away with Becky: "Good God! how pure she was;
how gentle, how tender, and how friendless! and he, how
selfish, brutal, and black with crime! Heart-stained, and
shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked at the sleeping
girl. How dared he–who was he, to pray for one so spotless! God bless
her! God bless her!" (page 340, chapter
XXIX). This is all well and good, but very
soon he is relieved at parting from her and eager for
the battle: "‘Thank Heaven that is over,' George thought, bounding down
the stair... his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks flushed: the great
game of war was going to be played, and he one of the players. What a
fierce excitement of doubt, hope, and pleasure! What tremendous hazards
of loss or gain! What were all the games of chance he had ever
played compared to this one?" (page 350, chapter XXX).
- Becky pretends distress at Rawdon's going off to war;
but once he is gone, she promptly falls asleep (does the expression on
her face in the drawing hint that she is at all distressed?). Later she
reviews
her financial position with satisfaction, light-heartedly visits
Amelia, and extorts a small fortune from Jos
for her horses.
- Representing the middle classes and the aristocracy
respectively, the cowardly Jos and equally cowardly Bareacres, like
large numbers of their compatriots,
decide to flee. The image of Lady Bareacres and company
sitting in their stately coach without horses and in
all her pride of rank is unforgettable.
- Amelia, in her selfish and abject devotion to
George, is utterly useless as he prepares to leave
for battle. She wallows in misery, so that she becomes
a burden to others, who must look after her. How are
we to read Thackeray's description of her suffering, "No man writhing
in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles off, where lay, after
their struggles, so many of the brave–no man suffered more keenly than
this poor harmless victim
of the war" (page 375, chapter XXXII)? Though helping
to nurse the wounded Stubble keeps her from brooding over
her fears, she listens to him only when George is mentioned
and when George isn't, she thinks about him.
- Jos's servant, Isidor, looks forward to appropriating
all of Jos's clothes after the British are defeated. The cowardly
Belgian soldiers, represented by Pauline's admirer, flee, lie about
their bravery under impossible conditions, and spread rumors of a
Brtish defeat. Anticipating Napoleon's victory, a vast number of
Belgians reveal their hypocrisy and their true sympathy for Napoleon.
Not all the characters lack kindness and concern for
others. The good-hearted, if comic, Peggy O'Dowd prepares her husband's
clothes and coffee, thinks of the "bad dinner those poor boys will get"
(page 364, chapter XXXII), and
tends to the self-incapacitated Amelia. Rawdon takes what
actions he can to provide for Becky's financial well-being should he
not
return and rides off to battle quietly, thinking
of her. It is Dobbin, not George, who extracts a promise from Jos to
take care of Amelia if the British lose. It is also Dobbin who
sends a message to Amelia, after the first battle, that George is all
right.
Thackeray's handling of Waterloo develops his central
theme and title; the most momentous events are a continuation of Vanity
Fair. All is vanity, down to the ostentatious monuments that are mass
produced for the war dead. Carved on George's monument are the "pompous
Osborne arms" and the Latin motto, "It is sweet and fitting to die for
one's country" (page 417, chapter XXXV). The motto is especially ironic
because George's death is stripped of any military glory or heroism; it
is relegated to a subordinate clause after a series of ordinary,
subdued details–Brussels is quiet, night falls,
Amelia is praying, and George lies dead. Although Mr. Osborne
loved his son and grieves for him, his vanity and selfishness
do not allow him to forgive George for not apologizing:
"Old Osborne did not speculate much upon the mingled nature
of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness
were combating together. He firmly believed that everything
he did was right, that he ought on all occasions to have
his own way" (page 420, chapter XXXV).
Not even death releases the hold which Vanity Fair has
on us.
WATERLOO TEETH: A HISTORICAL VANITY
A true-life detail that Thackeray could well have
used about the looting of corpses after the Battle of Waterloo is the
Waterloo
teeth. One way false teeth were made at the time was to use real
teeth, taken from corpses. Waterloo provided not only a wealth
of corpses, but corpses of young men who had sound teeth. So many
false teeth were made from the teeth pulled at Waterloo that false
teeth came to be called Waterloo teeth.
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