The Female Bildungsroman
Like other Jane Austen novels, such as Emma or Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey’s primary trajectory is the development of the main female character. Even though Catherine Morland is not a typical female Bildungsroman, her realizations in who she is and who she is becoming are very evident throughout the novel. Webster’s Dictionary defines the Bildungsroman as “a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character towards maturity.” In this novel, the main developments of Catherine being traced are the social, psychological, emotional, and intellectual, in addition to her growth as a fully functional lady of society. This paper will focus on Catherine Morland fitting the mold of the female Bildungsroman by way of how she learns, what she learns, and how she matures and grows wiser in the actions of people and society.
In Chapter I of the novel, Catherine is stereotyped as a person who “never could learn or understand anything before she was taught.” This helps to paint a picture of Catherine being helpless and dependent for extended emphasis or exaggeration of the trials she must go through to reach maturity and independence. For if Catherine learns through the guidance and teaching of others, her gullibility in what she is taught is heightened, therefore she may be susceptible to believe everything that she hears or reads. She takes everyone and everything at face value. Catherine must learn to correct these assumptions by distinguishing between the real world and the fictional world of literature, and also by learning through experience the difficulties of ordinary life.
Catherine’s imagination is the culprit for her downfall in separating reality from fiction. Upon her invitation to Northanger Abbey, thoughts of “long, damp passages, narrow cells, ruined chapel,…and some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun” are clouding up Catherine’s mind (16). These images are only heightened by Henry Tilney’s description of what Catherine should expect upon arrival to the Abbey: mysterious chests, violent storms, and hidden passages. Yet after arriving Catherine finds disappointment, for the Abbey is very modern. When sleeping her first night at the Abbey, Catherine discovers pap...
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...onversations on literature that she had with Henry Tilney; emotional and psychological growth in her realizations of who she is and how people truly are; and social growth in the fact that she was able to stand up for herself and make her own decisions in what she wanted to do and who she befriended. Catherine has learned through experience and has matured and grown wiser, because of the stimulus in the town of Bath. Even though she is not the typical female Bildungsroman, Catherine has grown in every aspect of her life, thereby making this novel indeed a Bildungsroman.
Works Consulted
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1996.
Castellanos, Gabriela. Laughter, War, and Feminism: Elements of Carnival in Three of Jane Austen’s Novels. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1994.
Ellis, Lorna. Appearing to Diminish: Female Development and the British Bildungsroman 1750-1850. London: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1999.
Galperin, William H. The Historical Austen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Kirkham, Margaret. Jane Austen, Feminism, and Fiction. London: Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter, 1997.
...periences in life. The most important one is search for freedom. Catherine is always locked up in her chamber, or trying to get away from the suitors. Throughout in the book she thinks about going to the abbey, leaving the manor, or going on an adventure. In the end her marriage with Stephen shows her that now she is “… at least less painfully caged” (Cushman 164). The story was very exciting when you wait to see what she would do to another suitor. I learned that as much as you try to fight something sometimes you cannot and it’s bound to you. As seen with Catherine and marrying any one of the suitors. “If I was born a lady, why not a rich lady” (Cushman 4). I think the author wrote this because she wants to show how medieval Europe was like, the social classes, education, religion, and especially society’s look on marriage.
Evelina and Northanger Abbey both belong in the 18th-century literature syllabus because they are good examples of how two different vehicles used to tell a story—a “history,” told in epistolary form, and a witty, tongue-in-cheek narrative—can completely transform the tone of a piece. On the surface, these are two novels about young women growing up in Europe during the18th century. They are both told with humor, they both offer great insight into the mind of their observant female leads, and they both give the reader a glimpse into the manners and customs of the time. On a deeper level, however, the differences between the two texts lie in the manner in which the story is told—and this comparison point is where the reader truly gleans a richer, fuller view of females coming-of-age in the 18th century.
Catherine has an extremely naive, novel-like view of love. “[Henry’s] name was not in the Pump-room book, and curiosity could do no more. He must be gone from Bath.yet he had not mentioned that his stay would be so short! This sort of mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine's imagination around his persona and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him,” (34-35). She is obsessed with Henry’s “mysteriousness”, not so dissimilar to the heroines in her novels, who were all in love with tall, dark and mysterious men. Although her naivete and imagination almost get her in trouble with Henry when she thinks his father has killed his mother, her naive obsession with him is the only reason their relationship ever
As the protagonist in the novel, Catherine is also the dynamic character because of the changes she undergoes too change her perspective and personality. Early in the book Catherine reveals herself as a stubborn character. This is inferred from the fact that her father attempts to force her into marriage with a suitor yet she refuses to do so. She continuously does whatever she can to get rid off the suitors that her father brings. For example, “I thought he spoke in some foreign tongue or cipher designed to conceal a secret message, but it seems only that his nose was plugged. And it stayed plugged throughout his entire visit, while he breathed and chewed and chattered through his open mouth. Corpus Bones! He troubled my stomach no little
Even though Nelly and Edgar have different perceptions of Catherine’s ways, there may be some truth and valid points to each character’s opinions. Catherine, a defiant woman, has shown dominance for most part of the plot and gets her own way by displaying means of aggression and emotional breakdown. However, there comes a time when Catherine seizes her dominating ways and her mannerism changes and appears docile; which establishes her double standard nature.
Jane Austen’s novels still remain relevant to this day, despite being written more than 200 years ago. This decade, from 2011-2017, celebrates the bicentennial publishing of her six novels. Her novels are classics, and still on many a required college reading list, yet her works are also read by ordinary people who just enjoy a good story. During her lifetime, her books were well received, but quickly forgotten after her death (Harman 65). Considered one of Britain’s most revered authors, her legacy is now passed from generation to generation and has become entrenched in popular culture (Swisher 13).
On the surface, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a romantic story of love overcoming varying vices. However, Austen takes care to feature very complicated characters to counteract the predictability of such a love story. In fact, Austen is often praised for her many-layered male and female characters. Austen creates detailed women who both follow and disregard the stereotypical concepts of femininity in varying social classes. However, she also creates complicated men who both fulfill and shirk the duties of husbands and men. In order to create such complicated characters, Austen seems to employ the duties and stereotypes of individuals as outlined by Mary Wollstonecraft in her work of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft
Jane, Austen,. Emma complete, authoritative text with biographical, historical, and cultural contexts, critical history, and essays from contemporary critical perspectives. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
Catherine’s revenge does not make things better for her. Her revenge on Heathcliff by blaming him for her upcoming death does not meliorate her mind. Just before she dies, she ascribes Heathcliff for her “murder.” “You have killed me, and thriven on it, I think” (Bronte 158). Catherine resembles what Oliver Goldsmith said, “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy?
Wojczak, Helena. “English Women’s History.” English women’s history. Hasting Press. n.d. Web 24 Nov 2013
Early in the essay Gargano states that, "in James's fiction, naivete may wear the look of an empty mind, but it is often the ideal preparation for receiving life fully and impressionably" (130). Gargano then tells us that Catherine will feel more intensely because she has not known strong emotions before. According to him, "her ingenuousness is the key to her genuineness and her sense of seeing, feeling, and judging life for the first time" (130). I feel this is a key element in understanding Catherine.
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about an orphan girl growing up in a tough condition and how she becomes a mature woman with full of courage. Her life at Gateshead is really difficult, where she feels isolated and lives in fear in her childhood. Her parents are dead when she was little, her dead uncle begged his evil wife, Mrs. Reed, to take care of Jane until she becomes an adult. But Mrs. Reed does not keep her promise, no one treats Jane like their family members even treats her less than a servant. By the end of this essay it will be proven that Jane’s life at Gateshead has shaped her development as a young woman and bildungsroman.
It seems both these critics have missed the point about Catherine, her inadequacies as a heroine, such as they are, exists because Austen tries to do too much with her – “to establish her both s a gooselike parody of the sentimental gothic heroine, and to advance claims for her as a human being who would learn good sense and learn even to go beyond it” .
In this article author (Lorna) have been constructing of the female Bildungsroman, which means whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character or development. Jane Eyre has all the determining characteristics of a traditional Bildungsroman. The plot of this novel is based on stages of growth and development. Jane's advancement from her position as teacher to private governess signifies an important development in her life. In the title ‘the self-constructed heroine’ means something that different from other heroines, like external circumstances such as wealth or status. At each moment in the novel, Jane is faced with a serious moral or emotional decision. Lorna wants to describe the different phases of life of Jane, which she faces in her life at every moment from the starting of Gateshead. Also, How Jane develops, her self-reflections become more sophisticated, and she becomes more able to benefit from them in her molding of her own life. Jane gains many pieces of knowledge about herself. She desires intellectual as well as emotional stimulation, and that her self-control often gives her control over others.
The Bildungsroman genre entails a character’s formative years and his or her development from childhood. The characters from this type of novel recall, in detail, past relationships and experiences that impacted the characters growth, maturity, and exemplar for their relationships with other characters. An important component to Bildungsroman novels is the concentration on the characters childhood (Gottfried & Miles, 122). In Jane Eyre and David Copperfield, both characters childhoods were despondent. Both characters experience the loss of a parent: Jane is a literal orphan; David’s loss is metaphorical, then literal. When Jane Eyre begins, Jane has already lost both parents and is under the guardianship of her aunt, Sarah Reed. Reed and her children, Jane’s cousins, are abusive to Jane and never accept Jane as family. Jane has lost both parents and with the death of her uncle, Sarah’s husband and an advocate for Jane, Jane is without any caring relationship. In addition to being without affection, Jane must endure torment. It is this lack of adoration that leads Jane to seek acceptance throughout her life, while attempting t...