Abstract

William Makepeace Thackeray is an outstanding critical and realistic writer in the 19th century. In Vanity Fair, his masterpiece, the irony art becomes a significant characteristic and the author presents a vivid panorama of English society of the 19th century with bitter tone and has superb artistic accomplishment. As one of the most frequent and important rhetoric means of narration in the novel, irony contributes a lot to compose the intrinsic value of the work, and is explored in Vanity Fair supremely well by Thackeray, This paper focuses mainly on the application of irony in this novel, and will analyzes it in four aspects: the title, the characterization, the plot arrangement, and the narration. Moreover, this paper will analyze the ironic effect and reveal the true object of irony and the intention of the author, which will not only assist readers to acquire a more profound understanding of the characters and the theme in this work, but also offer readers the perspective of thinking about social reality at that time.

Key words: Vanity Fair; irony; application; ironic effect; ironic object.

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

3. Applications of Irony in Vanity Fair-3

3.1 Definition of irony-3

3.2 Irony on title-3

3.3 Irony on characterization-4

3.4 Irony on plot arrangement-7

3.5 Irony on narration-8

4. Conclusion-11

Works Cited-13