Northanger Abbey

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How does Jane Austen engage her readers in ‘Northanger Abbey’?

Northanger Abbey is a Gothic parody, published in 1818 at a time when the gothic horror vogue (1760-1820 – the height of the genre) was ending. Jane Austin died in 1817 and the novel was published a year later. However, it is believed that it was written much earlier, possibly around 1798-99. If this is true Northanger Abbey was probably written before Austen’s better-known novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma. At this time books like Mysteries Of Udolpho by Anne Radcliff were very popular with many people. Some of the themes in Gothic literature continue to be popular in modern literature and film, especially horror. In this novel Jane Austen managed to write a book with some of the main features of this style of writing. However, it seems to me she wasn’t convinced and seemed to mock but also be affectionate with her readers, and I think this is why she chose to parody gothic literature. Jane Austen uses a number of ways to engage her readers but not all of them are by her using traditional gothic ideas. This is one reason why we are still studying her writing long after most gothic writers have been forgotten.

Jane Austen’s novels usually contain a heroine on a journey of self-discovery. All Jane Austen novels are about the characters and their relationships with themselves and each other. Catherine Morland is a prime example of this kind of protagonist - “when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way”. I think Northanger Abbey is about novels and people who read novels. For example, in the first chapter Jane Austen tells her readers how it was through books or plays that her main character (Catherine Morland) learned how to be a heroine by reading other writers such as Shakespeare. People reading Northanger Abbey at the time it was published will have also learned about the world through the books they had read or plays they had seen.

Northanger Abbey is considered to be a parody of gothic literature, but the vast majority of the book is concerned with usual kind of Jane Austen themes, for example, relationships between men and women, families and society and friendships. We only find out about Northanger Abbey half way through the book. Jane Austen’s readers who were used to reading about heroines who had adventures in scary, old buildings will have been as excited about Catherine Morland’s arrival as she was herself. Perhaps Jane Austen was using the gothic tradition to develop and practice ideas that she was really interested in and which she would later concentrate on in other books. I think that Austen has mixed feelings about the gothic tradition. Catherine Morland is a traditional gothic heroine but in the first chapter of the book Jane Austen tells the reader all the different ways in which she is not a typical heroine, for example she is from an ordinary family (healthy mother, ordinary father, not poor and not tragic). Also, Catherine is a ‘plain’ child and only grows to be slightly pretty as a young woman.

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Northanger Abbey has all the themes of a gothic horror novel, gloomy architecture, supposedly sinister characters, mystery and so on, but Austen presents the reader with an anti-climax on regular occasions whilst Catherine, along with the Tilney's, is at Northanger Abbey. Before Catherine arrives she has great expectations of Northanger Abbey, she thought it to be a large, terrible, horrific castle. This was because the novels she read had made her believe that a place like Northanger Abbey had, In some way, to be haunted, preoccupied and spooky. Catherine certainly believes this as her conversation with Henry Tilney proves, firstly ...

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