Becky Sharp Becky Sharp Rebecca Sharp is the main protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–48 novel "Vanity Fair". She is presented as a cynical social climber who uses her charms to fascinate and seduce upper-class men. This is in contrast with the clinging, dependent Amelia Sedley, her friend whom she befriends at school. Becky then uses Amelia as a stepping stone to gain social position. Sharp functions as a "picara"—a picaresque heroine—or by being a social outsider who is able to expose the manners of the upper gentry to ridicule. The book—and Sharp's career—begins in a traditional manner of Victorian fiction, that
Jim Dobbin Jim Dobbin James Dobbin, (26 May 1941 – 6 September 2014) was a British Labour Co-operative politician and microbiologist, who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Heywood and Middleton from 1997 until his death in 2014. Jim Dobbin was born in Fife, Scotland, the son of a coal miner, and educated at Catholic schools. He later studied bacteriology and virology at Napier College, Edinburgh. He worked as a microbiologist within the NHS for 33 years until 1994, mainly at the Royal Oldham Hospital. He was elected chairman of the Rochdale Constituency Labour Party for a year in 1980. In 1983