Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Discuss Austen's use of the gothic in Northanger Abbey

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Discuss Austen's use of the gothic in Northanger Abbey There is a division between the two sections of this novel; the part in Bath and the part involving the abbey. The first part, being the Bath section is contains an element of the gothic because Catherine and her companion Isabella read (novels very popular at the time). There is a link with the second section which is to do with the gothic element which is Catherine and her companion's reading of gothic novels. The beginning section is romantic but is eclipsed by the strong gothic component in the Northanger section. There is a ostensibly peculiar change in Catherine's character from literal and mundane to over imaginative in the respective sections; "a fundamental incongruity devolves around the uneasy coexistence of the novel's two sections: self-contained Gothic burlesque is grafted unceremoniously upon sentimental comedy of manners"1. This whole issue makes the novel less easy to comprehend. In Bath and at Northanger Abbey, Catherine with her romantic fantasies influenced by Gothic novels, especially The Mysteries of Udolpho, experiences a painful procedure of disillusionment and becomes more mature. ...read more.

Middle

to which one's reading is restricted. Austen completely ridicules gothic literature through Catherine's thoughts concerning the Tilney's home at Northanger Abbey. The satire of conventional literature is ubiquitous throughout the novel and is not anticipated to be subtle to the obscure reader. Although our generation is would not have been her target audience, the reader can still recognise the contrast of both the conventional and satirical forms of literature. Northanger Abbey although a modern and pleasant place of residence is transformed into a creepy gothic castle with torture chambers where murders have occurred and people are kept prisoner. This is clearly a mockery of the gothic, which is mentioned several times throughout the novel and is finally humorously brought to life in Catherine's imagination. If Northanger Abbey was truly meant to be a gothic novel then the descriptions of the Tilney residence and Catherine's suspensions would certainly have been justified. However, due to the entertaining and satirical tone of the novel the gothic style of writing does not fit in and has no place in the story. ...read more.

Conclusion

We know that it was very popular in the time when Austen wrote the novel. Many critics believe that Henry Tilney is voice of the novel; teasing Catherine with gothic ideas, stories and fantasies In conclusion, it is evident that Austen wished to be unconventional in writing this novel and wanted the narrator to be the one to make the reader aware of the contrasts of conventional literature and "Northanger Abbey. The narrator and the method in which the story is told are the focus of the story. Although the narrator is not an actual character in the story her presence is known and her opinions are expressed and can be identified by the reader. Jane Austen provides her audience with an alternative form of literature by having a novel focus on how a story can be told as opposed to most novels which traditionally focus on the story itself. Cleverly, by using a likeable character that the implied reader can identify with and relate to, Austen is able to use this character as a model for her extraordinary comparison. 1 Shaw, Narelle. Free Indirect Speech and Jane Austen's 1816 revision of Northanger Abbey. London:Warner 1987. pg 571 2 http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/courses/english/18C_Novel/northang.wp. 3 http://www.janeaustenba.org/self-deception.html 4 Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. London, Penguin Books. 1995 (pg 157) ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Bram Stoker section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related GCSE Bram Stoker essays

  1. Gothic Horror Stories

    Evidence of this is clearly shown ...swept on the storm came the striking midnight. These examples are all typical in a gothic horror story. In 'The Tell Tale Heart' time is used as a literary device. The mad man would go every midnight to try to kill the old man.

  2. A Comparison of two Gothic Horror Films, Sleepy Hollow and The Lost Boys.

    At the start of the film, there is a piece of writing, the text is written in a gothic font, telling us that the characters are probably based around the beginning of the nineteenth century, and relates to the scary, medieval era.

  1. Discuss possible answers to this question with reference to at least two critical or ...

    identity, or an interfusion of masculine and feminine functions, as Dracula here becomes a lurid mother offering not a breast but an open and bleeding wound. But if the Count's sexuality is double, then the open wound may be yet another displacement (the reader of Dracula must be as mobile as the Count himself)"

  2. "The Gothic is concerned primarily with representing transgression and taboo, there is nothing more ...

    I think that the superior, enduring Gothic texts definitely reflect political ideal and contemporaneous social features which touched the vast majority of people. This is especially apparent if one traces the maturation of the form from Walpole (1764) to Mary Shelley (1818)

  1. What boudaries does the vampire threaten? Discuss possible answers to this question with ...

    Jones (p. 85) argues that this can be seen in Browning's Dracula: From its very beginning as a literary trope, vampirism has always been used as a vehicle for more-or-less encoded articulations of sexuality and desire (as a way of writing about sex but without writing about sex), and importantly (though not exclusively)

  2. A consideration of the genre of Gothic horror writing with reference to its influence ...

    His novels challenged the sensible confidence of readers. Warpole's Gothic romance immediately encouraged a number of imitators, among them Ann Radcliff, "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1796) where a persecuted heroine survives numerous assaults to arrive at a happy ending in the arms of a handsome young man. Radcliff gained a reputaion for her tlaes of terror and suspense

  1. Compare and Contrast The Use of Gothic Conventions From Pre-1914 and The Twentieth Century

    Where there is no surrounding village and no obvious food source? And also in Frankenstein we see that Victor has isolated himself in his "hall" to commit himself wholly to his project. We see that, bizarrely, the room actually changes in size during the film to add confusion, and makes

  2. Literary Gothic

    Already this gives us a feel of eerieness and discomfort. This really comes over in the film as we can see how the director portrays the image of his laboratory. There is next to no windows, it is generally dark when Frankenstein seems to describe his story anyway.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work