Becky Sharp

Becky Sharp
Illustration by Thackeray to Chapter 4 of Vanity Fair: Becky Sharp is flirting with Mr Joseph Sedley.
First appearance	Vanity Fair 1847
Created by	William Makepeace Thackeray
Based on	Several women, including Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, Madame du Barry, Mary Anne Clarke and Harriette Wilson
Portrayed by	Minnie Maddern Fiske Mabel Ballin Myrna Loy Miriam Hopkins Reese Witherspoon Susan Hampshire Eve Matheson Natasha Little Olivia Cooke
In-universe information
Full name	Rebecca Sharp
Gender	female
Occupation	Demimondaine
Spouse	Rawdon Crawley
Religion	Church of England
Nationality	British

Rebecca "Becky" Sharp, later describing herself as Rebecca, Lady Crawley, is the main protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–48 novel^{[note 1]} 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 from school. Becky then uses Amelia as a stepping stone to gain social position. Sharp functions as a picara—a picaresque heroine—by being a social outsider who is able to expose the manners of the gentry to ridicule.

The book—and Sharp's career—begins in a traditional manner of Victorian fiction, that of a young orphan (Sharp) with no source of income who has to make her own way in the world. Thackeray twisted the Victorian tradition, however, and quickly turned her into a young woman who knew what she wanted from life—fine clothes, money and a social position—and knew how to get them. The route was to be by marriage, and the novel follows Sharp's efforts at snaring a wealthy, but simple, husband, and being outdone by fate in her attempt. Eventually, she achieves her aims, but her husband catches her with a member of the aristocracy. Finding herself in Brussels during the Waterloo campaign, as the mistress of a British general, she in no way shares in the alarm felt by other Britons; to the contrary, she soberly makes a contingency plan—should the French win, she would strive to attach herself to one of Napoleon's marshals.

It is probable that Thackeray based the Becky Sharp character on real women. A number of historical figures have been proposed, and it is generally considered that Sharp is a composite of them. Sharp has been portrayed on stage and in films and television many times, and has been the subject of much scholarly debate on issues ranging from 19th-century social history, Victorian fashions, female psychology and gendered fiction.

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