The Puppet Narrator of Vanity Fair
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13008575 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ryan Francis Murphy (Claremont Graduate University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 36-53 |
| Publication date | 2015-02-11 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victoriographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2044-2416 • E-ISSN: 2044-2424 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/vic.2015.0182 |
| OpenAlex | W1996700030 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
My essay sheds new light on the perceived shortcomings of Thackeray's narrator in Vanity Fair. There exists, I maintain, a level of narratological sophistication for which Thackeray is not adequately praised, and his dramatised narrator – a character long misunderstood and often maligned – is the key to our renewed understanding. In addition to thoroughly canvassing the ‘puppet’ narrator's dramatic evolution, I examine the ways in which previous scholars have both rejected and misrepresented ‘Before the Curtain’, Thackeray's introduction to the complete novel – what I call the novel's ‘surprise beginning’
Aesthetics · Art · Character (mathematics · Computer security · Key (lock · Literature · Narrative · Sophistication · Surprise · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Communication · Computer Science · History · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Highly cited | No |
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