The Alienation Of Human Nature By Consumerism In Vanity Fair

Widely acknowledged as the most representative work of William MakepeaceThackeray, Vanity Fair, written in a realistic way, displays a vast consumer panorama ofEnglish capitalist society in the early nineteenth century. In his novel, Thackeray, highlysensitive to changes in society, delineates and criticizes the consumerism prevailing inthe upper class in his age and its irresistible impacts. Meanwhile, the novel also reflectsThackeray’s keen insight into society and human nature with deep concerns.This paper focuses on the alienations of social values and human mind exerted byconsumerism in a transitional society of Victorian period. In the world Thackeraydepicts the consumption of luxuries gradually becomes a tendency and subsequentlyprevails although the consumerism in the embryonic forms mainly exerts its influenceon Victorian aristocrats and bourgeois class who increasingly becomes the dominantclass by taking over the political power. What’s more, characterized by their symbolicconsumption, conspicuous consumption as well as the consumption of women’s bodywhich is treated as commodity for emphasizing the aesthetic functions, the consumptionof people in the novel is alienated. Under the circumstances of the fetish of commoditiesand the alienated modes of consumption, the consumer society Thackeray presents isoverwhelmed by the values of hedonism, materialism and utilitarianism which result inthe inflated desires for commodities and alienated consumptions owing to which people are put in an extreme craze for wealth with empty soul. In Vanity Fair, the alienations ofhuman nature resulted from the increasing consumer culture are mainly shown infollowing three aspects: alienations with self, with others and in human mind. Human isnot only the combination of flesh, sex and desires but concerns more about inner spirit,so it is bound to get lost in the blind pursuit of wealth and hedonic comfort at the cost ofspiritual paradise. To come out of the plight and crisis of spirit, human has to avoidbecoming the slave of consumerism with a critical introspection on it.