Becky Sharp

or Rebecca Sharp, the principal female character in Thackeray's Vanity Fair. She is represented as a friendless girl, "with the dismal precocity of poverty," determined to rise in the world. She is described as "small and slight of person, pale, sandy-haired, and with green eyes, habitually cast down, but very large, odd, and attractive when they looked up." With wit, tact, and resolution to make her way, without scruple or conscience or moral principle, there is in all literature no other such striking picture of the managing woman as Becky Sharp. She is everywhere the recognized type of the shrewd and skillful adventuress. See Vanity Fair; Thackeray