Why is Thackeray's Vanity Fair called a "Novel without hero"?

What is a hero? Is it a super-human being? Is it someone who is noble and courageous and performs feats that nobody else can perform? Is it someone who saves someone else? Is it someone who overcomes extraordinary obstacles? Is it someone who achieves something that nobody else can?

If any of these apply to Becky Sharp, then perhaps she really IS a hero.

Although Thackeray subtitled his novel A Novel Without a Hero, there are some critics that have argued that Becky Sharp is more than just the protagonist - that she is both a hero and a villain at the same time. Thackeray used her character to condemn the society in which she lived, the society in which she tried to climb the social ladder. In spite of the awful things she does throughout her life to achieve wealth and status, she is honest with herself about her motives. She is a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it, regardless of the consequences. Then, when she rises to the top and achieves her goals, she is struck with a sort of  "ennui" - evidence that a society that espouses that wealth and status equal success is empty and meaningless - full of "vanity", like the town Vanity Fair in Pilgrim's Progress, after which this novel is entitled.

If society is the villain and not Becky, a case can be built that Becky is heroic because she succeeds in conquering society, even though the prizes it offers are, in Thackeray's view, not worth it. Becky, though, possesses many heroic qualities: she is smart, she is brave, she is bold, she has perseverance. True, she is also immoral, conniving and manipulative, but is this not society's fault? Are these not the qualities that the society forces her to resort to in order to rise?

If you contrast Becky with some of the great female characters of literature (Emma Bovary, Thomas Hardy's women characters such as Tess, etc.), you will see that while these women were destroyed or subdued by their societies, Becky overcomes hers, even if it is a hollow victory for her in the end.

Is Vanity Fair a novel without a hero, then? Is Becky an anti-hero - someone like Holden Caufield who lacks many of the traditional qualities of a hero but with whom the reader identifies and even admires?

I am playing the devil's advocate here to give you some ideas of what various critics have had to say about this novel. You must decide what YOU think, and then write your essay proving your point. Make sure you use specific evidence from the novel to support your views. You could write a good essay on any of these ideas, and perhaps you have some of your own.

See the link below for a discussion of the novel.