The Gothic Heroine In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

The Gothic Heroine in Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey as a satire and when the reader turns every page, it is clear that Jane Austen was making fun of the society she was living in. It’s the satire of the Gothic novel that was surrounding her at the time. What Northanger Abbey does so well in terms of satire is subvert the system of Western patriarchy by the gothic genre and questions the structure of women and nature. Like many of the tales in England of the heroine, Northanger Abbey tells the story of the daughter, who heroic acts are modesty and submission. This essay will focus on what gothic heroine meant at the time, while analyzing why Jane Austen was making fun of the meaning.

The term “gothic” was a term that

was widely used to mean medieval architecture, and also meant crude, barbaric and in contrasts with mortality, refinement and manners. Gothic novels in the eighteenth century were gory, dark, fast-paced and favored quick plots instead of character development. Jane Austen clearly avoids any of these pitfalls, but instead focuses on extravagance and hyperbole. Austen mixes in a lot of genres for Northanger Abbey, from novels of sensibility, to adventure novels and then the gothic genre itself. One interesting sentence from the novel, “who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine” (5). This little excerpt implies that no one would suspect that Catherine would be the heroine of the novel. She live a classy life, an aspect that gothic novel detest. Usually, our heroines are being locked up by the father, she was not the beauty seducing princes at a ball or better yet, there was nothing evil about her.
“She was fond of all boys’ plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird or watering a rose-bush.” (pp.1-2) That is just the first segment of her life, she was not a child put away as many gothic novels did. When Catherine continues to grow, her interest change, the subject of sensibility comes into play. During the eighteenth century, sensibility was seen as a feminine quality. This is Austen making the novel all sunshine but when the reader gets to the second segment of the book, the trip to Northanger Abbey, things take a turn. Northanger Abbey is a place of mystery for Catherine. The influence comes from reading Radcliffe’s novel. She is easily convinced that Abbey will be as mysterious as what is described in the novels. When Tilney instigates Catherine’s feelings towards Abbey, her curiosity gets the best of her.
“Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off...you will proceed into this small vaulted room, and through this into several others, without perceiving anything very remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may e a dagger, in another a few drops of blood and in a third the remains of some instrument of torture (p 144). This small passage indicates the mystery that Abbey brings. Of course, nothing is what it seems, the design ends up disappointing Catherine instead. Catherine does get a room with hats, nothing that intrigues her curiosity except a cabinet containing a manuscript. This is where the gothic element comes in, Catherine is afraid of the circumstance during the stormy night, adding a element of stormy night and mysterious odd cabinet. Much to her disappointment, once again, the manuscript turns out to be washed up bills. Jane Austen is poking fun at the gothic elements.
Another situation where Jane Austen pokes fun is when Catherine meets General Tilney, who wants Catherine to marry Henry, but because of the influence of novels, Catherine assumes that General Tilney is a cruel man and suspects him of murdering his own wife, with that suspicion strengthened when she finds out that “she died of mysterious illness” an element of gothic literature is murder and suspicion. Her imagination drives her to assume something else, that Mrs. Tilney is still alive but locked up in one of the many rooms. Catherine decides to explore and find Mrs. Tilney, once again to her disappointment, she finds nothing strange, “She saw a large, well-portioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed, arranged as unoccupied, with an housemaid’s care...(178).
While the first part of the novel has no mention of any gothic element, the second part has elements of gothic literature. By doing this Jane Austen, is able to make a transition into the satire she wants the reader to notice. The second part of the novel will remind many readers of the Female Quixote, only in the sense that Arabella is a believer of illusions, and one can wonder if Catherine’s character took some inspiration from this. One can also talk about friendships as well, the friendship between Catherine and Isabella, the first part of the book, the sincerity of the friendship comes into question, while in the second part, Catherine begins to understand the hypocrisy that Isabella has displayed. By the end, Catherine starts to realize the true human nature, how people can really be. The illusion that she once painted in the first part of the novel is diminished by the second part of the novel. Real life is not like what she read in those novels.
“It was not three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she had there run and backwards and forwards some ten times a-day with an heart light, gay, and independent; looking forward to pleasures untasted and unalloyed, and free from the apprehension of evil as from knowledge of it. Three months ago had seen her all this, and now, how altered a being did she return!” (221). Jane Austen slams the reader with the truth and much like Arabella in the end of the Female Quixote, illusion is inspired by the books that both of these women read and end up short changed by the end of their respective novels.
Language plays a important role when describing Northanger Abbey as a gothic parody. The way scenes are described, the way relationships and situations are described are important. Jane Austen pays a lot of attention to detail. The first night that Catherine spent in Abbey holds true to this testament.
“The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole afternoon; and by the time they broke up, it blew and rained violently” (151). Another example would be “The storm too abroad so dreadful!” (155).
These two small passages showcase the structure of the gothic element.

The words used make the situation horrifying. This of course is in Catherine’s mind, she wants to make the situations terrifying because she was influenced by the novels that she read.

As Robert Miles wrote in “Horrid Shadows: the Gothic in Northanger Abbey”, “Northanger Abbey does not work with the conventions of the Gothic novel so much as it warns against the dangers of Gothic reading, in the manner of parody, the tricks of the genre are turned against itself. (133). Miles can very well be describing what Austen is poking fun at. Catherine is doing “gothic reading” though it really is not a gothic novel, only in the mind of a girl who wants to be a gothic heroine.

If we can look at another gothic element, that is the women in distress. We all know that novels in the eighteenth century have a woman in distress. The fainting, the sobbing and the terrified. Catherine on the other hand is not a women in distress in reality, but plays one in her mind. She is terrified by circumstances and that adds fuel to her imagination. “Catherine for a few moments, was motionless in horror. It was done completely, not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling of breath. Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment. Catherine trembled from head to foot...the manuscript fell from her hand” (155). One can see the fear that resonates in her mind as if she needed help at the moment. She falls prey to the mystery. Her mind is overwhelmed by her Gothic

reading.
“Her mind is made up of several points and her resolution formed, of always of judging and acting in future with the greatest good sense, she had nothing to do but forgive herself and be happier than ever; and the lenient hand of time did much for her by insensible gradations in the course of another day” (185). This passage shows how much she was influenced by reading those novels that created this illusion that Abbey would be a Gothic story that will be full of adventure.
What Jane Austen does so perfectly is capture Catherine’s delusions and the psychological tensions of the gothic novel and parody it.
To conclude, the gothic novel was supposed to put fear in the reader’s mind. Jane Austen did this, but she also put it in the mind of the main character, Catherine. By doing this she was bale to make fun of the reader and the Gothic genre. Jane Austen uses illusion and language to convince the reader that they are reading a gothic novel, but they are not and it’s till the end that the reader starts to realize that there are comical references as well. Catherine is a product of her own mind but also her own curiosity. She wanted a Gothic adventure in Abbey, but all she got was reality that did not fit what she read in the Gothic novels she read as a youth. Austen plays with this and gains the upper hand.