The aim with this paper was to find out how selfishness affect people in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Thackeray can also be seen as a puppetmaster, therefore, how he uses pairs, works with irony, how the narrative form which he uses to take part in the novel has also been focused upon. Furthermore, I have shown how these formal strategies highlight how selfishness, envy, greed and egotism motivate the characters in the novel and how it effect themselves, with the main focus on Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. To show this I have looked upon how the two women are concerning marriage, their sons and love. The results show that Vanity Fair seethes with selfishness, covert or otherwise, and it presents, too, a world in which you can hardly stir without wounding someone else. The comments mentioned by Thackeray himself or through other characters in the novel give more emphasis both to the action and the characters involved.