In this article by drawing partial parallels to Becky Sharp, we can see how Catherine Hayes is also an intelligent woman in her own unschooled, “streetwise” manner, navigating a world that offers few legal or respectable avenues for female self-determination. Unlike Becky, Catherine never had the limited but real educational training that might elevate her rhetorical skills or allow her to pass among the polite classes. Instead, her cunning emerges from raw survival instincts.