Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes: A Study in the Element of Dramatic Form in the Central Novels of W. M. Thackeray

Abstract

<p>The paper which follows develops from the premise that by examining what has been termed Thackeray's moral uncertainty in Vanity Fair in the context of his narrative technique we discover a marked concern by Thackeray with the problem of freeing himself from his story while at the same time knowing and telling it; and that in fact this concern is a concern with a rudimentary dramatic form and is common to Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes, as well as Vanity Fair, and that these four novels can be read as different solutions to this problem which achieve varying degrees of success.</p>