“Vanity Fair” by W. M. Thackeray (post 1): Is narrator omniscient, but unreliable; inconsistent and protean, with limited awareness; or multiple personalities?

According to Wikipedia, “The novel is a satire of society as a whole, characterised by hypocrisy and opportunism, but it is not a reforming novel; there is no suggestion that social or political changes or greater piety and moral reformism could improve the nature of society. It thus paints a fairly bleak view of the human condition.

“This bleak portrait is continued with Thackeray's own role as an omniscient narrator, one of the writers best known for using the technique. He continually offers asides about his characters and compares them to actors and puppets…” However, “the narrator, despite being an authorial voice, is somewhat unreliable” (1).

In contrast, a book listed in Wikipedia’s own bibliography writes at length on the novel’s inconsistent narrator: “The most omnipresent and form-changing of narrators, he is a protean figure…The metamorphoses of the narrator…reflect his belief that one cannot see and understand the ambiguity of human life from a single, stable point of view…As a narrator he is overtly inconsistent…at one moment claiming omniscience, and at another acknowledging that he has only limited awareness…" (2, pp. 71-72).

My interpretation of the above controversy is that Vanity Fair probably has multiple, unacknowledged narrators. Some think they are omniscient and that the characters are mere puppets, but others acknowledge their limitations and realize that characters seem to have minds of their own (3).

1. Wikipedia. “Vanity Fair (novel).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_Fair_(novel)

2. Edgar F. Harden. Vanity Fair [1848]. Masterwork Studies. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1995.

3. Taylor, Hodges, Kohanyi. “The Illusion of Independent Agency.” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4), 361-380, 2002-2003. https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/4/2521/files/2013/03/Taylor-Hodges-Kohanyi_2003-2b6wdel.pdf