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Chapter 38
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
Bute, Mrs. Bute, and James continue to be disappointed by their unexpectedly small inheritance from Miss Crawley. Mrs. Bute tries to be more sociable, attending balls and going out in public. She believes her family can serve as an example to others.
Like many of the other characters, life for the Bute family has mostly returned to the way it was before, as the war hasn’t directly affected them, and they’ve missed their chance at Miss Crawley’s fortune. Nevertheless, Mrs. Bute still wants to improve her family’s standing, so she decides that if she can’t do it with money, she’ll do it with reputation.
Themes
By contrast, Sir Pitt becomes increasingly fed up with respectable society. The turning point is when Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane show up to visit him shortly after their wedding. During the visit, Sir Pitt holds Lady Jane too long in a hug and asks for a kiss. Sir Pitt goes on a rant about how he’ll die soon, but he’s at least glad that Lady Jane came to visit. He tries to give Lady Jane some of Lady Crawley’s old jewels, but Miss Horrocks, the butler’s daughter, sees this and gets jealous. It has become a rumor in town that Miss Horrocks wants to be the next Lady Crawley.
Sir Pitt’s erratic behavior seems to suggest that his health is declining due to alcoholism. While he maintained his bad habits for a while with minimal consequences, bolstered by the high title he inherited, eventually, his hard-drinking lifestyle begins to catch up with him. While Sir Pitt may have proposed to Becky with good intentions, his continued interest in much-younger women suggests that he is becoming more openly lecherous.
Themes
Pitt Crawley is so horrified by Sir Pitt’s drunken condition that he never goes back. But Sir Pitt himself doesn’t seem to care about the reputation he’s acquiring. One night, after drinking and singing with the Horrockses, Sir Pitt has a medical emergency and needs a doctor. Miss Horrocks takes the opportunity to look for keys to open some of Sir Pitt’s drawers, but Mrs. Bute arrives on the scene and accuses her of being a thief. Mrs. Bute wants to hang Miss Horrocks, but she and her mother beg for forgiveness. Meanwhile, the doctors are trying to bleed Sir Pitt. As most time passes, Mrs. Bute begins taking charge of the household.
Every character in this passage behaves with moral ambiguity. Miss Horrocks wants her piece of Sir Pitt’s wealth, but Mrs. Bute stops her because she wants to take control of the house and have her own say in how Sir Pitt’s wealth gets distributed when he dies. Sir Pitt himself isn’t blameless, since his drinking seemingly made him careless around Miss Horrocks and brought on his medical condition in the first place. After a brief truce between the Crawleys and the Butes, things again turn hostile over the issue of inheritance, showing how the prospect of inheriting money leads to family conflict.
Themes
