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
Vanity Fair (novel) Becky quite seriously and is reconciled to Amelia only a short time before he is killed in battle. The best friend of George Osborne, Captain William Dobbin is tall, ungainly, and not particularly handsome. He is a few years older than George but has been friends with him since his schooldays, even though Dobbin's father is a fig-merchant (Dobbin & Rudge, grocers and oilmen, Thames Street, London - he is later an alderman and colonel of the City Light Horse regiment, and knighted) and the Osbornes belong to the genteel class and have become independently wealthy. He defends George and