| Robert Black
Carol Daeley
ENG 342: 18th-Century Oddities
April 28, 2009
Social Expectations, Illusions, and Horrors in Northanger Abbey
“A contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality,” is the first sentence of the entry for “irony” in The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, and most certainly does not describe how Catherine Morland, the heroine of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, perceives the world (Bedford 220). As The Bedford Glossary goes on to explain, irony is one of the “subtlest” forms of rhetoric and comedy, which description lends itself to a better understanding of the complexities of Northanger Abbey, for even without reading Gothic novels, paying careful attention to Austen’s language makes it abundantly clear when she is parodying a Gothic convention (Bedford 222). Set in the familiar world of English social interactions at the end of the 18th century, Northanger Abbey critiques that social order by parodying the Gothic fad of the time. Using careful language to powerfully satirize conventions of Gothic novels, Austen subtly reveals the inconsistencies and horrors of class hierarchy through characters who differ so greatly in appearance from each other and the expected types of a Gothic novel that the actual horror is more chilling than any skeletal discovery. An Augustan Humanist to the core, despite her critiques of the English class system, Austen maintains the status quo, suggesting that the imperfect people who abuse their social standing are the problem, not the class system itself.
Opening with a heroine who no one “would have supposed” from her youth “to be an heroine,” Austen says that the young Catherine Morland changes, “from fifteen to seventeen” being “in training for a heroine” (Austen 5, 7; vol. 1, ch. 1). As Barbara Benedict notes in “Reading by the Book in Northanger Abbey,” Catherine reads books that were designed to “repackage fashionable texts for readers,” “By severing short passages from their original texts and indexing them under popular categories for quick reference” (par. 4). Benedict shows that such an education is not conducive to building character; “Catherine learns nothing about herself at all from these profiteering publications,” bent as she is on memorizing stock phrases to quote like a Gothic heroine would (par. 3). Austen mocks this aspect of the Gothic heroine, saying that Catherine “read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives, ” when Catherine’s life is anything but eventful (Austen 7; vol. 1, ch. 1). However, Austen does not make it explicit that she is deriding this practice; her wording is ambiguous, and to the unaware reader, Northanger Abbey could easily appear to be a disappointed Gothic tale, rather than a parody of that genre.
The Bedford Glossary notes that Northanger Abbey was “published the same year as Frankenstein” by May Shelley, and could therefore easily be seen as Austen’s failed attempt to write a Gothic novel (Bedford 421). Had Austen simply continued to write in the style of her other works, her criticism of the Gothic would not have been so profound; but by adopting the form of the Gothic and showing it to be ultimately ludicrous thrills, Austen uses the “paradoxical nature” of irony, wearing a mask that is only seldom “perceived as a mask” (Bedford 422, 222). Austen uses the expectations placed on a novel that appears to be Gothic to move from a parody of Gothic to a study of appearances versus reality, culminating in a satirical critique of the English class system. A pair of dramatis personae reflect these shifts, beginning with Isabella Thorpe and coming to fruition in General Tilney.
Isabella Thorpe, the first close friend Catherine makes on a visit to Bath with her neighbors, says “‘I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong’” (Austen 25; vol. 1, ch. 6). With such strong attachments, Isabella perplexes Catherine, since she frequently breaks her promises, which are often made to her “‘dearest Catherine’” (Austen 41; vol. 1, ch. 9). While at a ball in Bath, Isabella says to Catherine’s brother James, “‘I would not stand up without your dear sister for all the world’” (Austen 35; vol. 1 ch. 8). Having reassured Catherine that she will not be left alone during dancing, “three minutes” later, Isabella contrives to dance and tells Catherine “‘I am afraid I must leave you’” (Austen 35; vol 1., ch. 8). Catherine does not know what to make of this, but does not suspect Isabella of duplicity, because Catherine has “too much good-nature” (Austen 35). Thus deceived, Catherine plays easily into Isabella’s snare; Benedict demonstrates that the type of novels Catherine enjoys may be used “for social advancement,” which is precisely what Isabella Thorpe has in mind (par. 4). Isabella compiles a list of Gothic novels for Catherine to read, which Catherine takes as a sign of genuine affection (Austen 25; vol. 1, ch. 6). Benedict reveals the real import of this action:
By this act, however, Isabella (who is hunting James Morland) does not establish female comradeship but dominance. She intends to keep Catherine addicted to fantasy, and Catherine, already preferring story to sentiment, is a willing victim. Among the fantasies of this fiction is that of disinterested friendship, the sort that Isabella professes for Catherine. In its place, Isabella uses reading to ensnare Catherine in her plot. (par. 6)
Ensnared, Catherine reads Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, and learns to read herself into the book as heroine, and projects the types of horrors found in Udolpho onto her own life. Catherine ultimately expects every chest to contain a skeleton and every drawer some remnant of illicit love. Catherine, supplied with such a ready explanation for the unknown, does not exercise careful judgment or critical reflection on her interactions with other people. Benedict claims that in Northanger Abbey, “Austen advocates a moral model of reading in which the reader penetrates the intricate causal connections of characters and events,” instead of reading superficially (par. 15). While this is certainly one of Austen’s goals in Northanger Abbey, to limit such critical reflection to reading books flies in the face of Austen’s intention. Rather, Austen shows readers that they ought to examine their own lives as closely as they would a literary text. Catherine lacks this ability, so given what appears to her as a complete lack of clearly sinister intentions, she regards Isabella as a genuine friend, and so trusts her without reflecting on Isabella’s infidelities. Similarly, Catherine trusts Henry Tilney without much considering his credentials.
Henry Tilney, while the antithesis of the Gothic hero, captures Catherine’s affections quite quickly. With his sincere dislike of the inane formalities required of etiquette, Henry bars no holds in his wry self-introduction, describing himself to Catherine as “a queer, half-witted man” (Austen 15; vol. 1, ch. 3). As his sister Eleanor later informs Catherine, this is Henry’s typical demeanor; he treats Catherine “‘exactly as he does his sister,’” which shows that Henry is genuine (Austen 78; vol. 1, ch. 14). When he is expected to talk about “the proper attentions of a partner,” he makes excellent conversation about “matters as naturally arose from the objects around them,” confusing but pleasing Catherine (Austen 14; vol. 1, ch. 3). Claudia L. Johnson footnotes Catherine’s distress at Henry’s unorthodox but agreeable manner, pointing out that “his high irony contrasts with the tearfully serious high sentiment of heroes” common in Gothic novels (Austen 360). A master of his emotions, Henry upsets the convention of a hero; Austen describes him as affecting emotions, and has him remark to Catherine, “‘some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply’” in response to her question of why he should appear to be so surprised (Austen 14, 15; vol. 1, ch. 3). This first interaction between Catherine and Henry is rife with situational irony: Henry defies the expectation that he be a hero, being “not quite handsome” (Austen 14; vol. 1, ch. 3). The initial conversation between Henry and Catherine is unorthodox, because it is not a formulaic question and response session about how long one has been in town is replaced by dialogue that mocks such trifling concerns (Austen 14-15; vol. 1, ch. 3). When Henry derides the accepted mode of conversation, Catherine tries not to laugh, inexperienced in society as she is, and Henry pursues his target of showing to her just how foolish to expect to find the excitements of a novel in real life (Austen 14-15; vol. 1, ch. 3). Claiming to know what Catherine will write of him in her journal to-morrow, Henry then responds to Catherine’s suggestion that she might not keep a journal, displaying the absurdity of making assumptions based on Gothic conventions:
‘Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?’ (Austen 15-16; vol. 1, ch. 3)
Henry’s numerous hyperbolic statements evince the irony he is participating in as Austen uses him to parody the Gothic heroine’s journal full of drastic events (Bedford 223). This irony is what perplexes Catherine about Henry; she does not understand that he is commenting quite incisively on the subjects he discusses with her, because she herself is so straightforward in her thought and speech. This straightforwardness and simplicity is what sets Catherine apart from the other characters in Northanger Abbey.
Conversing with Henry, Catherine remarks, “I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible,” yet she does not realize the profound implications of her statement; Henry has to point it out to her (Austen 96; vol. 2, ch. 1). Catherine is what Isabella claims to be: “uncoquettish,” so it is no surprise that she also has no idea of how to read people, whereas Isabella reads too much into them (Austen 31; vol. 1, ch. 7). Henry praises Catherine for this, declaring her to be “‘superior in good-nature,’” adding the hyperbole “‘to all the rest of the world.’” (Austen 96; vol. 2, ch. 1). Catherine is as genuine to Isabella as Isabella is duplicitous to Catherine. Henry, however, sees her genuine emotion as an amazing oddity in a social system ruled by stiff formalities, and endeavors to educate Catherine that she might become more self-reflective and aware of others’ intents. Because Catherine does not place any expectations on others’ social conduct, she is elated when General Tilney invites her to accompany Eleanor to Northanger Abbey. As Catherine moves into this new world, she acts in much the same fashion as when she met Isabella and Henry, expecting that people’s behavior is what it ought to be.
As she spends more time with the Tilneys, Catherine continues to assume that everything is what it appears to be and that people possess “‘an innate principle of general integrity’” (Austen 161; vol. 2, ch. 12). As there are myriad things Catherine “had never thought of,” she accepts General Tilney’s civilities as representative of how social interactions ought to be conducted (Austen 74; vol. 1, ch. 13). After her exposure to the Tilneys, Catherine begins to show more discernment, attributing Henry’s reserved attitude during a visit to his being out of sorts, and flatly rejects Isabella’s assessment that Henry is too proud and uninterested in Catherine (Austen 94; vol. 2, ch. 1). Catherine also retains her politeness in the face of Isabella’s selfish scheming, hoping only that she may be able to write to Eleanor when she is about to be invited to visit Northanger (Austen 100; vol. 2, ch. 2). However, while traveling to Northanger, Henry presents Catherine a perfect parody of the Gothic, promising such terrors upon their arrival at Northanger. Alarmed by Henry’s extended Gothic parody of Northanger, Catherine assumes a one-to-one correlation between real life and the books she has read, and begins to assume, expect, and project what she has learned from Udolpho onto Northanger Abbey, which causes her to make some grave mistakes.
When she first learns that the Tilney’s residence is an abbey, Catherine begins to project the expectations such a Gothic setting would promise in such a work:
With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned up an abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorial of some injured and ill-fated nun. (Austen 102; vol. 2, ch. 2)
Catherine does not even know what Northanger looks like, much less any of its history, but having imposed these Gothic expectations on Northanger Abbey, Catherine finds what she expects, particularly in the person of General Tilney. General Tilney, who “though so charming a man, seemed always a check upon his children’s spirits” (Austen 113; vol. 2, ch. 5). “To such anxious attention was the general’s civility carried” in an early encounter with Catherine, that she cannot but believe him to be a perfect gentleman (Austen 74; vol. 1, ch. 13). Combined with her assessment that General Tilney is a practically perfect gentleman, Catherine’s belief that he murdered his wife leads her to completely miss the true horror of General Tilney: He upholds the formalities of the English class system so severely that he severs any relationship improper for his rank, no matter its merit. Having found the discrepancies between the appearance of Northanger Abbey and her Gothic expectations to be “very distressing,” Catherine also finds that “the strictest punctuality to the family hours would be expected at Northanger” (Austen 118; vol. 2, ch. 5). Yet, Catherine does not attribute any significance to the difference between her expectations and reality; she accepts General Tilney’s strictures as proper social conventions and fails to realize that his punctuality is comically exaggerated. Austen later remarks offhandedly that the dining room is “always to be seen at five o’clock,” poking fun at General Tilney’s regularity of habit, and exposing how ridiculous his demand for punctuality is (Austen 134; vol. 2, ch. 8).
Catherine often misses the meaning behind the General’s vague statements, such as when he says that he will be purchasing a new set of China tea service in the near future, implying that it will be a marriage present to Catherine and Henry (Austen 128; vol. 2, ch. 7). Catherine finds a disconnect between the General’s character and her reaction to it: “the General, whose smiling compliments announced a happy state of mind, but whose gentle hint of sympathetic early rising did not advance her composure” (Austen 127; vol. 2, ch. 7). Catherine cannot fathom “why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while,” because she still expects people to be perfectly intelligible, as she is with her lack of unclear speech (Austen 156, 96; vol. 2, chpts. 11, 1). Unfortunately, Catherine does not see how deeply the General’s duplicity runs, and takes him at his word when he relates his purpose in making his sons work when they have no need to because of his estate, saying “‘The money is nothing, it is not an object, but employment is the thing’” (Austen 128; vol. 2, ch. 7). In truth, in the General’s eyes, Catherine Morland is nothing but an opportunity to increase his own estate. Catherine is as confused by the incongruity between the General’s statements and his intents as she is by the passages in Northanger, not “being able to turn aright” and find her way through the abbey’s halls (Austen 134; vol. 2, ch. 8). So, she turns to what she has been taught by Isabella, and continues to hold blindly to the Gothic expectations she had of Northanger “long before her quitting Bath” (Austen 146; vol. 2, ch. 10). Casie Hermansson notes in “Neither Northanger Abbey: The Reader Presupposes” that this disconnect between appearances and reality caused by unrealistic expectations forms the core of Northanger Abbey, as shown by the language Austen uses.
The error of Catherine’s thinking is not her observations; it is rather the lens by which she views her observations, which is loaded with presuppositions. Hermansson says “That which is presupposed is generally shielded from direct challenge by rhetorical convention and discursive propriety,” which makes presuppositions very difficult to separate from observations (Hermansson 339). Hermansson pays special attention to the usage of double negatives in Northanger Abbey, noting that they “recall the positive and negative while creating another alternative altogether,” as Catherine’s positive observations of the General’s character and her negative response to his demands create her view of him as a Gothic villain (Hermansson 341). During a country dance at Bath, Henry draws an analogy between country dancing and marriage which “challenges [Catherine’s] assertion of difference” as Hermansson puts it, revealing that Catherine cannot see correlation between things she presupposes are opposites, a flaw that will be her undoing (Hermansson 343). Hermansson shows that this tendency to presupposition causes Catherine to make absurd conclusions about Northanger Abbey:
In other words, the presupposed Abbey renders what ought to be familiar as defamiliarized – uncanny – purely because of the intertextual discrepancy. Catherine is here the victim of an ironic dislocation that exists only in the presuppositional realm; the Gothic-as-intertext fails to supply Catherine with the mode of reading she requires. The disjunction that has been caused derives from presupposition alone…The ironic dislocation then is that there should be none. There is no Gothic intertext by which to read the Abbey, causing Catherine instead to resolve the perceived dissonance by inventing the intertextual connection. (Hermansson 345-346)
As has been demonstrated above, Catherine habitually misinterprets data that she does not understand, such as the General’s behavior, and finds in it the horror of the Gothic Isabella has taught her to expect. Hermansson claims that Henry is the cause of Catherine’s misinterpretations, but it is Isabella’s machinations that cause Catherine to mis-apply Henry’s lessons of analogy seeking synthesis, as the Gothic character of Catherine’s presuppositions evinces (Hermansson 348). “The novel’s actual Gothic, then, lies in the reinscription of the Gothic as ever-present in the “manners of the age” Henry Tilney invokes to disprove”; the horror is not the murder Catherine expects, but the class bias she does not suspect (Hermansson 352).
As Joseph Wiesenfarth puts it in “The Invention of Civility in Northanger Abbey,” “Catherine has to learn that such wickedness is more likely to appear in common life than in Gothic fiction” (par. 10). Pursuing the claim that “The project of Northanger Abbey is to find a civility that embraces individuality,” Wiesenfarth demonstrates that Henry hopes to help Catherine “achieve a sense of herself within the bounds of civility” (pars. 4, 7). Wiesenfarth’s reading of Henry’s noted “Remember that we are English” speech underscores the differences between Henry and General Tilney:
This is the culmination of Henry’s helping Catherine achieve a sense of herself within the bounds of civility. Since civility is conduct appropriate to a citizen, Henry reminds Catherine of her citizenship and what it implies: she is an English woman subject to the Common Law of England and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church. That’s the positive side. Moreover, in today’s world, she lives among nosy neighbors who read newspapers that thrive on sordid events and make them generally known through an intricate network of communication. That’s the negative side. But taken together, positive and negative sides promote ethical conduct, instilling, so to speak, a civil and religious conscience that cannot be flagrantly transgressed without being flagrantly obvious. (par. 7)
The General’s civility is so overbearing he has lost sight of the purpose for such manners as he exhibits, the mark of a true buffoon. Where Henry “happily attacks the very conventions that allow him to meet and flirt with Catherine,” the General follows the letter of the law rather than its spirit (Wiesenfarth par. 3). Where “the Thorpes are parodies of individuality,” the General has internalized the civil code that allows him to be an individual, so he is a far more insidious evil than the Thorpes’ “selfish expressions of conventions that value visible indicators of social success” (Wiesenfarth par. 4). Again, Henry “is genuinely full of fun, asserting his individuality, not in rejecting civility, but in a critique of one of its numbing conventions,” the perfect parallel to his father’s stiff formality (Wiesenfarth par. 3). In “Satire and the Form of the Novel: The Problem of Aesthetic Unity in Northanger Abbey,” Frank J. Kearful comments on Henry’s relationship to his father, explicating Henry’s rebuke to Catherine for her suspicion that General Tilney murdered his wife: “While apparently endeavoring to vindicate his father, Henry through his careful qualifications and deviously negative and double negative circumlocutions actually raises more questions than he answers” (Kearful 523). The language Henry uses, casting doubt on the General’s character, shows that the General’s real evil is not the Gothic murder Catherine expected it to be; it is his unflinching adherence to a social code that pervades his behavior to such a degree that he harangues his children for something as simple as being late to dinner (Austen 112, 120; vol. 2, chpts. 5, 6). Henry’s defense makes “the General perhaps even more sinister than before” (Kearful 523). And this is the horror Austen seeks to unveil in Northanger Abbey: A class system in which a young woman as genuinely delightful as Catherine Morland can be turned out of a house and sent on a seventy-mile journey on a Sunday without a footman to escort her solely because she is not as rich as General Tilney thought (Austen 172; vol. 2, ch. 14).
Austen’s question at the end of Northanger Abbey, “whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience” is itself one last parody of the dichotomy presented by Gothic novels (Austen 187; vol. 2, ch. 16). Isabella and the General present Catherine with an enigma she cannot comprehend: people whose supposed sincerity is studied fraud. This dichotomy is an evil Catherine cannot fathom, so she believes the simple answer provided by Gothic novels. In the stark contrast of her subtle style to the blatant Gothic, Austen is not concerned with overthrowing the English class system; she aims only to show the incongruities present in it, and the harm that comes from internalizing it. Again, however, Austen’s critique is much more complex, for she also shows what evils may come of internalizing the Gothic and its view of the world given its formulaic plotlines that could easily be projected onto any aspect of common life.
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. Eds. James Kinsley and John Davie, with an introduction and notes by Claudia L. Johnson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.
Benedict, Barbara M. “Reading by the Book in Northanger Abbey.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-Line 20.1 (Summer 1999). The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austin College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 23 Apr. 2009
Gilbert, Deirdre E. “‘Willy-Nilly’” and Other Tales of Male-Tails: Rightful and Wrongful Laws of Inheritance in Northanger Abbey and Beyond.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-Line 20.1 (Summer 1999). The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austin College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 23 Apr. 2009
Hermansson, Casie. "Neither Northanger Abbey: The Reader Presupposes." Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature 36.4 (Fall 2000): 337-356. The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austen College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 24 Apr. 2009
Kearful, Frank J.”Satire and the Form of the Novel: The Problem of Aesthetic Unity in Northanger Abbey.” ELH 32.4 (Dec. 1965): 511-527. The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austin College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 23 Apr. 2009
Klingel Ray, Joan. "Austen's Northanger Abbey." Explicator 61.2 (Winter 2003): 79-81. The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austen College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 24 Apr. 2009
Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
Schaub, Melissa. “Irony and Political Education in Northanger Abbey.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-Line 21.1 (Winter 2001). The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austin College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 23 Apr. 2009
Wiesenfarth, Joseph. “The Invention of Civility in Northanger Abbey.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-Line 20.1 (Summer 1999). The MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Austen College Abell Library, Sherman, TX. 23 Apr. 2009
Social Expectations, Illusions, and Horrors in Northanger Abbey by Robert A. Black is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License |
