The story in Vanity Fair is developing according to the lifelong career of the traditional woman Amelia Sedley and the non-traditional woman Rebecca Becky Sharp。 The former was weak, simple, sentimental but good-hearted。 The latter was clever, beautiful, but came from ignoble family。 Rebecca struggled for a better living and for a higher statue of the upper class。 Through contrasting the life-long experience of the two heroines with his precise and thorough observation, his subtle humor, caustic satire, vivid description and charming narration, Thackeray exposes the ugliness of capitalism under the hypocritical mask and attacks the social relationships under the bourgeois word。 

2。 Literature Review 论文网

In 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray rose to major rank among English novelists with Vanity Fair, an ironic panorama of middle-upper class London Life and manners at the beginning of the 19th century。 From Thackeray’s day to the present, Vanity Fair has been the focus of criticism for the past more than one hundred and sixty years。 Critics change their research direction and deepen the degree of their research as time advances。 Some of them study the ethical content; Some are attracted by the psychological dimensions; Some attempt to deconstruct the impressive characters; Some focus on the polysemy of the theme。 This paper will interpret this work from the aspect of the application of irony。

Irony, as a rhetorical technique, is even considered to be “indispensable in all narrative literature and even poetry, and is a rhetorical figure with universal validity"(Mick 47)。 It can be seen that irony is one of the most common rhetorical skills in the novel。 It has the characteristics of profound, powerful and intriguing when used in the plot arrangement, characterization and indicating the emotion and attitude of the author。 Successful irony helps the author to express his rhetorical purpose implicitly。 The function of irony, "perhaps lays on achieve comprehensive and harmonious opinions” (Mick 35)。 Thackeray in the novel Vanity Fair demonstrates the successful use of irony。 This rhetoric, leads to the unique narration style, so that readers never tire of reading。 This article tries to explore the irony rhetoric of this work from the application in four aspects。

Xu Meng has compared sarcasm satire, irony, verbal irony, humor and other relevant concepts and discuss the generation, understanding and communication process of sarcasm in Vanity Fair from the perspective of Relevance Theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson in her An Analysis of Verbal Sarcasm in Vanity Fair From the Perspective of Relevance Theory。 Moreover, in A Compendium of Literary Pragmatics, Tu Jing has applied his theory through giving the example briefly that irony in Vanity Fair could be analyzed from the perspective of SAT——Speech Act Theory, and he analyzed Rebecca by analyzing her boasting, flattery, mockery, and other speech acts（Tu 301）。 Moreover, Xiong Huaxia gives her view about irony in Vanity Fair about its micro ironic speech acts such as assertive irony, directive irony, commissive irony and expressive irony in her Speech Act Analysis of Irony in Vanity Fair。 

However, the application of irony in Vanity Fair and its function are usually ignored and lacked systematic and detailed analysis in essays and reviews。 Based on all the research above, this paper will sort out the evidence of ironic features in title, characterization, narration and plot arrangement。

3。 Applications of Irony in Vanity Fair 

3。1 Definition of irony文献综述

     The American Heritage Dictionary’s secondary meaning for irony: “Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs”。 This sense, however, is not synonymous with "incongruous" but merely a definition of dramatic or situational irony。 It is often included in definitions of irony not only that incongruity is present but also that the incongruity must reveal some aspect of human vanity or folly。 On this aspect, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has also defined: A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things。