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Chapter 51
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Vanity Fair, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed and Ambition
Vanity
Social Class and Character
Gender
Inheritance and Family Life
Summary
Analysis
In the days before Rawdon’s arrest, Lord Steyne tends to bestow his wealth on people he likes, and Becky and Rawdon have earned his favor. He begins paying for Rawdy to attend a more expensive boarding school. Although Rawdy doesn’t have much experience with education, he begins to take an interest in it. Rawdon is sad to see his son go, although Becky laughs at him whenever he gets sentimental. Lady Jane and Matilda are also sad to see him go. Rawdy’s departure drives a wedge between Rawdon and Becky, although she barely notices.
Lord Steyne’s interest in Rawdy is selfish—by getting Rawdy out of the house, he makes it easier for himself to be alone with Becky. Becky herself is so disinterested in Rawdy that she laughs at Rawdon for getting sentimental. While Becky has so far been a morally gray character and perhaps even an anti-hero, her callous treatment of Rawdy suggests that she may be turning into a villain, as her selfishness continues to dominate her personality.
Themes
A friend of Rawdon’s promises that his son who goes to the same school as Rawdy will take care of him. Instead, the boy makes Rawdy do chores for him. Still, Rawdy seems happy enough when Rawdon later visits him at school.
Rawdy is used to being neglected at home, so he doesn’t even seem to realize that the older boy is bullying him by forcing him to do chores.
Themes
Lord Steyne continues to provide for Becky and Rawdon. He’s dismayed, however, when he learns that Becky has kept Miss Briggs at her job, even though he paid Becky money to fire her. Lord Steyne decides to go talk to Miss Briggs herself, taking a coffee while he pretends to wait for Becky, and he learns from Miss Briggs that Becky just gave her a dress without paying back her debts.
Lord Steyne believes that Becky is tricking everyone except for him, but seeing Miss Briggs still at her job forces him to consider for the first time that perhaps Becky is lying even to him. As he investigates by talking to the naïve Miss Briggs, he learns that Becky’s betrayal goes beyond just neglecting to fire Miss Briggs—she also refused to pay back her debt to Miss Briggs, keeping Lord Steyne’s money as her own.
Themes
After talking with Miss Briggs, Lord Steyne begins to fully understand how good Becky is at coaxing money out of people—including him. Instead of making him dislike her, this realization just makes Lord Steyne like Becky more. And he realizes that even Rawdon is smarter than he seems on the surface. The next time Lord Steyne sees Becky, he compliments her on tricking him out of money. Caught, Becky can’t deny the truth, but she lies instead about why she needed the money so urgently.
The crooked characters in Vanity Fair often feel most uncomfortable around the honest characters, and so it makes sense that Lord Steyne actually prefers to learn that Becky is deceiving him. Still, he likes to believe in his own cleverness, so he can’t resist letting Becky know that he knows she tricked him. Becky is so familiar with lying at this point that she already has a back-up excuse planned to justify her actions, further showing how her character has grown into her role as a schemer.
Themes
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Becky and Lord Steyne go for a long ride in her carriage. When they get back, Becky cheerfully goes to Miss Briggs and tells her that, with Rawdy at school, Becky no longer needs Miss Briggs’s services. Instead, Miss Briggs can replace the aging housekeeper at Lord Steyne’s country estate, which he doesn’t use often. Miss Briggs accepts on the condition that Rawdy should be able to come visit her, and Becky, willing to promise anything, agrees.
Becky is happy to let go of Miss Briggs because she found a way to do it that involved not having to pay back the debt that Becky and Rawdon owe her. Miss Briggs continues to be naïve, asking about visiting permission for Rawdon, when in fact there’s little chance that Rawdon would ever come as a visitor to a disused estate somewhere in the country.
Themes
Rawdon is happy about not having to pay the money he and Becky owe Miss Briggs, but Lady Jane and Pitt Crawley warn him to keep a close eye on Becky because Miss Briggs was Becky’s companion to protect her from men. Although Pitt Crawley has been one of Becky’s most devoted admirers, the dismissal of Miss Briggs motivates him to confront Becky angrily.
Becky manages to downplay Rawdon’s suspicions by giving him something he likes: a canceled debt with Miss Briggs. In a sign of what a delicate balance Becky maintains, she finds that making Rawdon happy makes Pitt Crawley unhappy, probably because Pitt knows that without Miss Briggs around, Becky will be even more under the influence of Lord Steyne—and so less susceptible to Pitt Crawley himself.
Themes
Picking up on hints from Lady Jane and Pitt Crawley, Rawdon begins spending less time out at billiards and more time at home to keep an eye on Becky. Rawdon convinces himself that his suspicions are baseless and that all he really has to do to have a happy family is make Becky like Rawdy a little more. It’s while Rawdon is thinking of all these things that he gets arrested and sent to debtor’s prison.
Rawdon tries to make himself happier by living in a state of denial. This chapter succinctly shows the dangers of that choice—he gets thrown into debtor’s prison when he isn’t paying attention. Ironically, this passage implies that by trying to get closer to Becky, Rawdon might have actually pushed her further away. While the narrator never implicates Becky or Lord Steyne in Rawdon’s arrest, it does seem suspicious that Becky has been clearing the house of anyone who could get in between her and Lord Steyne (including Miss Briggs and Rawdy) and that Rawdon was just beginning to spend more time at home.
Themes
