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Chapter 42
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
The narrator invites the reader to travel 10,000 miles to the Madras region of India, where Major O’Dowd is now a colonel, and his wife Peggy is there with him as one of the most distinguished ladies of the area. Peggy continues to surprise people around her with her brash personality, and one day she gets the idea that her sister Glorvina absolutely must marry Dobbin (who is in India in a military position at this point).
Despite all the references to India and other British colonies, this is one of the few chapters that actually takes place in a colony. The British characters abroad act little different than they do at home—among other things, this chapter captures how one of the goals of British colonialism was to force British culture onto other parts of the world.
Themes
What Peggy doesn’t know is that Glorvina has already been off flirting and trying to find a husband in many parts of the world, breaking off 10 engagements in Ireland, one in England, and possibly also some in India. In India, Glorvina constantly quarrels with Peggy, and yet the one thing they agree on is that Glorvina should marry Dobbin.
This chapter suggests that perhaps Peggy wants to marry Glorvina to Dobbin less because Peggy likes Dobbin and more because Peggy is eager to find anyone that the wild Glorvina can finally settle down with.
Themes
Dobbin, meanwhile, has no idea about all the marriage plans swirling around him. He believes that Glorvina is just using him as practice for flirting, like someone practicing the piano, and figures she will get bored of him once she has other options available. Dobbin only has one ideal woman in his head, and it’s Amelia.
In his head, Dobbin uses the piano metaphor to compare the flirtatious Glorvina unfavorably to the loyal Amelia, who actually practices the piano to get better at the piano rather than to flirt, as Glorvina does. Rather than making Dobbin forget Amelia, his time in India seems to only strengthen his resolve.
Themes
When Dobbin receives Amelia’s letter, it’s news to him that he’s marrying Glorvina. From then on, Glorvina really starts to annoy him, and he refuses to talk about women in general. He laments to himself how he’s tried to be faithful to Amelia for so long and still she scolds him. When Dobbin ignores her, Glorvina begins sobbing to Peggy that Dobbin is the only man she could ever want.
Glorvina wants Dobbin so much because he is seemingly the one thing she can’t have. In many ways, Glorvina’s capricious desires make her similar to Becky (and since Dobbin doesn’t particularly like Becky, it’s no surprise that he also finds Glorvina grating).
Themes
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One day Dobbin receives a letter from one of his sisters. He’s nervous to open it, because the last letter he sent back to her was angry, scolding her for spreading the rumor that he’s marrying Glorvina. Dobbin reads the letter to himself, then he suddenly announces that he must take a leave of absence to England at once.
This passage deliberately avoids revealing the contents of the letter Dobbin receives, setting up yet another cliffhanger to be addressed later. The letter helps illustrate another effect of British colonialism: it helped lead to regular communication across longer distances than before.
Themes
