Here is an example of the confusion possible in this narrative. The author has Georgy tell his mother that he has seen Sir William, and Mr. Dobbin, who have promised to show him the Tower of London. According to the previous narrative, Dobbin has just asked leave to return from Madras to London. He does not arrive, according to the account that follows, until Georgy has gone to his grandfather's place and is established in the Reverend Mr. Veal's school. Thackeray does not always keep time, place, sequence, and names in their proper places.
Dobbin measures Amelia's feeling for him by his thought on her letters "how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish they were!"
Thackeray characterizes Peggy O'Dowd: "In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of friends; having a perfectly good opinion of herself always, and an indomitable resolution to have her own way." She has determined to get Glorvina a husband, and she will succeed. As for Glorvina, her great desire is to be admired, possibly the reason for her "forty or fifty previous defeats" in matrimonial endeavor.
