"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"
"Although what Thackeray principally objected to was glorification of a criminal's deeds, his intent may have been to entrap the Victorian reader with their own prejudices and make them think the worst of Becky Sharp even when they have no proof of her actions. The book has inspired a number of adaptations: Vanity Fair (novel) Vanity Fair is an English novel by William Makepeace Thackeray which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying"
"also began work, never finished, on the novel later published as ""A Shabby Genteel Story"". In ""The Luck of Barry Lyndon"", a novel serialised in ""Fraser's"" in 1844, Thackeray explored the situation of an outsider trying to achieve status in high society, a theme he developed more successfully in ""Vanity Fair"" with the character of Becky Sharp, the artist's daughter who rises nearly to the heights by manipulating the other characters. Thackeray is probably best known now for ""Vanity Fair"". In contrast, his large novels from the period after ""Vanity Fair"", which were once described by Henry James as examples"
"term dates to the social climber Becky Sharp, protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel ""Vanity Fair"" (1848) and the 2004 film of the same name. In Mark Twain's novel ""The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"" (1876), Tom Sawyer falls in love with Becky Thatcher, with her ""yellow hair plaited into two long tails"". Daphne du Maurier's novel ""Rebecca"" (1938) features another woman ""who will always be in a man's head"", Kelly wrote. Rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot used the term in ""Baby Got Back"" (1992): ""Oh my God, Becky, look at her butt"", while Plies sang: ""Becky, do you love me? Are you"
"model for the Becky Sharp character was the 18th-century French courtesan, Madame du Barry. Sharp has been portrayed on stage and in films multiple times between 1911 and 2004 and has been the subject of much scholarly debate on issues ranging from 19th-century social history, Victorian fashions, female psychology and gendered fiction. Thackeray wished to demonstrate the impossibility of Victorian England's closely held belief that it was impossible for women to create a fashionable self-image. Set in high regency society at the time of the Waterloo Campaign, it is a ""vast satirical panorama of materialist society"" and an early work"
"The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (2000) (Confessions of a Shopaholic in the United States and India) is the first in the popular Shopaholic series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pen-name of Madeleine Wickham. It focuses on the main character Rebecca (Becky) Bloomwood, a financial journalist, who is in a serious amount of debt through her shopping addiction. Rebecca Bloomwood lives in a flat in fashionable Fulham, London, that is owned by her best friend Suze's wealthy, aristocratic parents. Becky works as a financial journalist for the magazine ""Successful Savings"","
"understood how, from Sharp's actions, she was a bad woman. However, their judgement would be based as much on actual expectations of real social morality as on what they read in Thackeray's pages. More, that they thought she was bad need not have meant they were necessarily unsympathetic. Thackeray himself compared Sharp's career as ""resembling the slitherings of a mermaid"", and Harold Bloom says that she is enough of a character to make her fundamentally likeable, to the extent that ""any reader who does not like Becky is almost certainly not very likeable herself or himself"". Poet Dorothy Parker—herself orphaned"
"Vanity Fair (novel) Vanity Fair is an English novel by William Makepeace Thackeray which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, reflecting both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his"
"the feisty and scheming Becky Sharp in ""Vanity Fair"" makes this adaptation of Thackeray's classic novel more relatable for a 21st century audience."" Following the conclusion of the series and on writing about the series's significantly low viewing figures in comparison to its ""BBC One"" rival, ""Bodyguard"", Ben Dowell of the Radio Times praised Cooke's performance, writing that ""of all the TV Beckys down the ages – Joyce Redman, Susan Hampshire, Eve Matheson, Natasha Little, not to mention Reese Witherspoon in the 2004 film – Cooke is definitely one of the best we’ve ever had."" Vanity Fair (2018 TV series)"
"Thackeray's ""Vanity Fair (1847),"" Becky Sharp, exceptionally gifted with mimicry, is looked upon with much suspicion. Her talents of mimesis lend themselves to ""a calculated deceptiveness"" and ""systematic concealment of her true intentions"" that is unbecoming of any British woman. An editorial in ""The Era"", quoted a contemporary writer outlining the history of the divergence of Church and Stage following the Middle Ages, and arguing that the conflict was unnecessary: In the second half of the 19th century, Evangelical Christians established many societies for the relief of poverty. Some were created to help working women, particularly those whose occupation placed"
"It features his most memorable character, the engagingly roguish Becky Sharp. The Brontë sisters were other significant novelists in the 1840s and 1850s. Their novels caused a sensation when they were first published but were subsequently accepted as classics. They had written compulsively from early childhood and were first published, at their own expense in 1846 as poets under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The sisters returned to prose, producing a novel each the following year: Charlotte's ""Jane Eyre"", Emily's ""Wuthering Heights"" and Anne's ""Agnes Grey"". Later, Anne's ""The Tenant of Wildfell Hall"" (1848) and Charlotte's ""Villette"" (1853)"
"made a strong impression on contemporaries. Elizabeth Browning's protagonist of ""Aurora Leigh"" (1856), Marian Erle is a similar character to Sharp. In 1872 ""The Spectator"" reviewed Anthony Trollope's ""The Eustace Diamonds"" and made an unfavourable comparison between Trollope's main female lead, Lady Eustace, with Becky Sharp. The reviewer wrote how ""we had supposed that in Lady Eustace we were to have Mr Trollope's equivalent for Thackeray's 'Becky Sharp’, but we hardly think that we have got it; or if we have, Mr Trollope's equivalent for Thackeray's 'Becky Sharp' is but a poor one."" Henry James called Sharp an ""epic governess"""
"book, see: ""Vanity Fair"" plot summary. This adaptation is now available on DVD, distributed by Acorn Media UK. Vanity Fair (1967 TV serial) Vanity Fair is a BBC television drama serial adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name broadcast in 1967 (the first drama serial in colour produced by the BBC). It starred Susan Hampshire as Becky Sharp, for which she received an Emmy Award in 1973. The serial was also broadcast in 1972 in the US on PBS television as part of ""Masterpiece Theatre"". The BBC would later produce another adaptation in 1987, and another in"
"delivery of Luke and Becky's child into the world, a daughter they name Minnie. Relieved, Becky and Luke are given some privacy in welcoming Minnie. The book ends with Luke, Becky and Minnie living modestly in the Bloomwood family home. Shopaholic and Baby Shopaholic and Baby (2007) is the fifth novel in the popular 'Shopaholic' series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) and her husband Luke as they navigate Becky's first pregnancy. The plot jumps several months forward from ""Shopaholic and Sister"". Becky is"
"wealthy but irascible elderly woman. In an unpublished 1911 essay, novelist Charles Reade used the accepted image of Sharp to illustrate Madame du Barry's assertion that the most foolish woman can trick a man, by using the education that he has paid for her to have against him. Says Reade, that had she known of Thackeray's creation, du Barry would have asserted ""the wisest of the sex is a Becky Sharp"". It has in turn been suggested that du Barry was a direct model for Thackery's Sharp, with both women being ""careless beauties cursed with ambition beyond reason, who venture"
"time, ""The Charlotte Observer"" called her work ""an excellent performance that's soft around the edges"" and the ""Los Angeles Times"" concluded that Becky is ""a role Reese Witherspoon was born to play"". However, ""LA Weekly"" wrote ""[Witherspoon] ends up conveying so little of what's at once appalling and perversely attractive about the would-be mistress of Vanity Fair"" and states that it may have to do with Witherspoon's vanity, ""with an Oscar-less young star's need to be loved more than anyone could conceivably love the ""real"" Becky Sharp."". Others have stated she was miscast. In late 2004, Witherspoon began working alongside"
"Becky Bloomwood Rebecca Jane 'Becky' Brandon (née Bloomwood) is a fictional character and the main protagonist from the Shopaholic series of novels by British author Sophie Kinsella. Becky grew up in Oxshott, Surrey with her Mum and Dad. After attending Bristol University, she moved to London. She first lived with her best friend Susan ""Suze"" Cleath-Stuart before she eventually moved to New York City. Prior to moving to New York, she worked as a personal finance expert on a breakfast television program called 'Morning Coffee'. Becky met her future husband, Luke Brandon, CEO of Brandon Communications (a Public Relations firm)"
"achieves with her ability to create herself into something she naturally is not. This makes her ""dangerous"", in contemporary eyes, says Montz, and Sharp plays many such discrete roles throughout the book. However, each time she does reinvent herself in order to overcome the next adversity, her previous reputation always catches up with her. Jennifer Hedgecock has commented that: Becky Sharp was born in Soho, the daughter of an impoverished English artist and a French ""opera-girl""—possibly a prostitute—and is thus of Half-French ancestry. She appears to love her father: Thackeray tells how, as a girl, she would sit with him"
"Gerard Murphy as Lord Steyne<br> Robert Cole as Little Rawdon<br> Zohren Weiss as Little Georgey ""Winner"": ""Nominated"": Vanity Fair (1998 TV serial) Vanity Fair is a BBC television drama serial adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name broadcast in 1998. The screenplay was written by Andrew Davies. The BBC previously adapted the novel as a serial twice before, in 1967 and also in 1987. For a full length summary of the book see: ""Vanity Fair"" plot summary. Natasha Little as Becky Sharp (character)<br> Frances Grey as Amelia Sedley<br> David Ross as Mr. Sedley <br> Philip Glenister as"
"any sign that there is a real Becky beneath the facade of the performer, the flirtatious lover, the good wife, the social climber, the capricious friend"". Such women as Sharp, wrote Frazee, contributed ""nearly as much to the pungent flavour of the period as did the regent himself"". Margaret Atwood has praised Sharp as a character, writing how she ""makes no pretensions to goodness. She is wicked, she enjoys being wicked, and she does it out of vanity and her own profit, tricking and deluding English society in the process"". She compares Sharp to Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg in ""The"
"Shopaholic and Baby Shopaholic and Baby (2007) is the fifth novel in the popular 'Shopaholic' series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) and her husband Luke as they navigate Becky's first pregnancy. The plot jumps several months forward from ""Shopaholic and Sister"". Becky is now heavily pregnant with her first child and is preparing for the arrival of her newborn. During a sonogram appointment with Luke, Becky is briefly left unaccompanied in the ultrasound room. Desperate to know the gender of the baby despite"
"in the modern world. The story focuses on the characters Emmy Sedley and Becky Sharpe (the latter as the clearly defined anti-hero), with the plot focused on the eventual marriage of these two characters to rich men, revealing character flaws as the story progresses. Even the most sympathetic characters, like Captain Dobbin, are susceptible to weakness, as he is often narcissistic and melancholy. The larger-than-life hero is a more common feature of fantasy (particularly in comic-books and epic fantasy) than more realist works. However, these larger-than life figures remain prevalent in society. The superhero genre is a multibillion-dollar industry that"
"end, Becky finds a great idea - first attend the Plaza wedding (and pretend to get married) and then take a private jet provided by Laurel's company to England and really get married at Becky's home. At the end of the novel, Becky reveals to Luke that she had cashed in their New York wedding gifts and booked two first-class around-the-world tickets for their honeymoon. Shopaholic Ties the Knot Shopaholic Ties the Knot (2002) is the third in the popular ""Shopaholic"" series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of"
"had been subtitled ""Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society"" and both they and the early bound versions featured Thackeray's own illustrations. These sometimes provided symbolically-freighted images, such as one of the female characters being portrayed as a man-eating mermaid. In at least one case, a major plot point is provided through an image and its caption. Although the text makes it clear that other characters suspect Becky Sharp to have murdered her second husband, there is nothing definitive in the text itself. However, an image reveals her overhearing Jos pleading with Dobbin while clutching a small white object in"
"Vanity Fair (1967 TV serial) Vanity Fair is a BBC television drama serial adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name broadcast in 1967 (the first drama serial in colour produced by the BBC). It starred Susan Hampshire as Becky Sharp, for which she received an Emmy Award in 1973. The serial was also broadcast in 1972 in the US on PBS television as part of ""Masterpiece Theatre"". The BBC would later produce another adaptation in 1987, and another in 1998. A previous version was transmitted on the BBC in 1956/7. For a full length summary of the"
"Shopaholic Ties the Knot Shopaholic Ties the Knot (2002) is the third in the popular ""Shopaholic"" series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Bloomwood and her boyfriend (later fiancé) Luke Brandon as they become engaged and plan their wedding. The book opens with Becky living with her boyfriend Luke in Manhattan's West Village. She has finally found her career calling as a personal shopper at Barney’s and is happily helping her best friend, Suze plan her wedding. Becky's best friend, Danny, helps her make a bridesmaid's dress."
"Shopaholic Abroad Shopaholic Abroad (also known as Shopaholic Takes Manhattan) (2001) is the second in the ""Shopaholic"" series. It is an adventure novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeleine Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Bloomwood and her adventures when she's offered the chance to work in New York City. Along with the first novel in the series, it provided the basis for the film ""Confessions of a Shopaholic"". Life looks good for Becky Bloomwood. She has a great relationship with boyfriend Luke as well as a steady job giving financial advice on television. Furthermore, she is on"
"Derek Smeath, will continue to keep an eye on her account. Becky Bloomwood: the main character and protagonist in the story. Although she works as a financial journalist, she also has significant debts concerning her credit cards and her constant overdrafts. Despite it, nothing stops her from buying new clothes, shoes and new items which others think are unnecessary. Susan ""Suze"" Cleath-Stuart: Becky's aristocratic best friend who keeps an eye on her spending spree. She is described as blonde and is an even worse shopaholic than Becky. In ""Shopaholic Abroad"", it's revealed that Suze and Alicia have a bitter history"
"Shopaholic and Sister Shopaholic and Sister (2004) is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It is the fourth book in the Shopaholic series. It follows the story of Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) and her husband Luke as they return from their ten-month long honeymoon. The novel commences with the protagonist, Becky Bloomwood, coming to the conclusion of her extravagant ten-month-long honeymoon around the World with her husband, Luke. Although the newlyweds have been enjoying themselves, Luke and Becky decide it is time to return home to England. Before returning home, the couple embarks upon a"
"lesser contexts, Becky also appears as Arachne to Miss Pinkerton's Minerva and as a variety of classical figures in the works' illustrations. Rawdon, the younger of the two Crawley sons, is an empty-headed cavalry officer who is his wealthy aunt's favourite until he marries Becky Sharp, who is of a far lower class. He permanently alienates his aunt, who leaves her estate to Rawdon's elder brother Sir Pitt instead. Sir Pitt has by this time inherited their father's estate, leaving Rawdon destitute. The well-meaning Rawdon does have a few talents in life, most of them having to do with gambling"
"possible that Thackeray pastiches the classic Victorian novel's denoument in which the heroine makes a ""death-in-life renunciation of worldly pleasures""—or the guise of one. Amanda Sedley's husband, George Osborne, wants to seduce Sharp: he too fails to see through Sharp's projected image—""blinded by Becky's constructed self"". Sharp clearly has sexual misadventures"", but Thackeray never makes the connection between Sharp's sexual relationships and rise in social status explicit. For Sharp, sexuality and femininity are primarily tools with which to improve her social and financial position in both the short- and long-term. She is unmotivated, says Claudia Nelson, ""by either heart or"
"as Betty Kane. It has also been adapted twice for television, in 1962 and 1988, and once for radio in 2005. The 1962 version featured Michael Aldridge as Blair, Rosalie Crutchley as Marion Sharpe, Meg Wynn Owen as Betty Kane, and Veronica Turleigh as Mrs. Sharpe. The 1988 version starred Patrick Malahide as Blair, Joanna McCallum as Marion Sharpe, Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs. Sharpe, Kate Emma Davies as Betty Kane, Alex Jennings as Nevil Bennett, and Bryan Murray as Kevin Macdermott. The Franchise Affair The Franchise Affair is a 1948 mystery novel by Josephine Tey about the investigation of a"
"less serious, more gossip-oriented magazine aimed at women, and circulation quickly grew. A series of high-profile celebrity relationships, such as Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt provided ample material, while reality shows such as ""Big Brother"" and ""Pop Idol"" grew popular at just the right time to help fill pages. Heat achieved record sale figures when Jade Goody had a make-over and was first on the front cover after her stint in ""Big Brother 3"" (2002) and later when Nikki Grahame and Pete Bennett from ""Big Brother 7"" split and Grahame was interviewed for ""Heat"" in 2006. In 2009–10 ""Heat"" spearheaded"