Introduction

In this dissertation I set out to explore the Gothic Novel from a new satirical point of

view and, more precisely, when it is turned into a parody. To achieve this goal, I have focused

my research on Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

In order to understand the parody, we have to look at the genre we are dealing with:

the Gothic novel. There is not one accurate definition of the Gothic novel since its purposes

are different according to the various authors. Contrary to what the modern reader may think,

the Gothic novel is not intended to terrorize the reader or at least it is not its main purpose. If

the reader believes so, it is essentially because the genre is usually associated with

supernatural elements which blur its genuine intentions. This quotation describes what any

reader might expect to find in a Gothic novel: “one of the powerful images conjured up by the

words 'Gothic novel' is that of a shadowy form rising from a mysterious place: Frankenstein's

monster rising from the laboratory table, Dracula creeping from his coffin, or more generally,

the slow opening of a crypt to reveal a dark and obscure figure.”1 The Gothic novel is

constantly misinterpreted by the modern reader who forgets the essential aim of this genre.

There are similarities which cannot be ignored and which contribute to this misunderstanding.

A great number of scholars and professors have identified and elaborated a list of generalities

related to the genre. One can recognize a Gothic novel thanks to these characteristics2 but it

takes more time to understand the underlying meaning: the very “essence” of the Gothic

novel. First Gothic novels were produced in the mid-eighteenth century. The Castle of

1 Maggie Kilgour, The Rise of The Gothic Novel, p. 3

2 “Cataloguing of stock characters and devices which are simply recycled from one text to the next:
conventional settings (one castle – preferably in ruins; some gloomy mountains – preferably the Alps; a haunted
room that locks only on the outside) and characters ( a passive and persecuted heroine, a sensitive and rather
ineffectual hero, a dynamic and tyrannical villain, an evil prioress, talkative servants).” Ibid, p. 4

6
Otranto is considered to be the first one3. The eighteenth century is characterized by

numerous changes; The enlightenment and the scientific discoveries it produced transformed

the visions human beings used to have of themselves and of the external world. Philosophers

agreed on the issue that men were endowed with reason. The Gothic Novel is born in a world

which praised rationality and morality4. Those novels have similarities in their plots, narrative

techniques and characters, but they often differ as far as literary intentions are concerned. The

real purpose of the Gothic novel varies from an author to another but they do have a common

goal which is to make the reader aware of the superficiality and the darkness of his own

world. In her novels, Ann Radcliffe challenged the eighteenth century values to further

establish their legitimacy. Her novels condemn irrationality and dismiss vicious conducts and

behaviours. Kilgour suggests that Ann Radcliffe's Gothic stories tend to represent the world in

a manichean way5. She differentiated good from evil and that way, Radcliffe imposed herself

as a moralizing force.

What I will analyse is the way Jane Austen mocks Radcliffean Gothic literature by

parodying her famous novel The Mysteries of Udolpho.

Jane Austen was born in a family of seven children on 16 December 1775 in the

village of Steventon in Hampshire. Her parents ran an all boys' school. She was very close to

her sister Cassandra and wrote her numerous letters, thanks to which we now have an

overview of the customs of the time and her opinions about them. In 1797, she completed

Pride and Prejudice but did not manage to publish it, she started Sense and Sensibility and

Northanger Abbey (at the time, entitled Susan). The family moved to Bath in 1801 after Jane's

3 Jacqueline Howard, Reading Gothic Fiction, p. 12

4 Fred Botting, Gothic, p. 21-23
5 Maggie Kilgour, The Rise of The Gothic Novel, p. 8

7
father retired, then she moved to Southampton where she stayed for three years. She moved

again to Hampshire where she completed her major novels and published the majority of

them. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814 and Emma in 1815.

Although Northanger Abbey was the first chronologically to be written, it was published

posthumously in 1818 by her brother Henry and is well known as the parody of the Mysteries

of Udolpho.

In Northanger Abbey we find many known features of what characterizes her style: her

satirical tone, her mastery of language and her wit. She is recognized by many others as an

efficient observer of human nature and even considered as an Augustan by some. 6 She is often

referred to as a satirist, although the genres of her novels are diverse. Her great achievement is

that contrary to previous satirists like Pope or Swift, her goals are perfectly reachable and

achievable. She does not describe society according to a moral standard as they used to do.

On the contrary, she claims that virtue is at hand, ideals are achievable. Consequently, her

novels are rather didactic. They show the reader what is superficial in people's attitude and

how they can chase away this superficiality.

She wrote at a period when literature was starting to change. Scientific discoveries,

revolutions in France and England, and the renewal of philosophical theories established that

men were capable of reason. The Novel was a new genre. Contrary to the epic or the drama,

the Novel places the hero at the heart of its reflections. For the first time, we have access to

the thoughts and feelings of the hero.

Parody is the device Jane Austen used in the accomplishment of her satire. And such is
6 Marylin Butler, Jane Austen and The War of Ideas, p. 1

8
our definition of the satire: “A literary attack through ridicule, irony and parody, in verse or

prose, and intended to arouse amused contempt for its target.”7 Sutherland defines the satire

in his English Satire as the depiction of “the follies and imperfections and faults of men and

women”8 . He says that the main difference between a comedy writer and a satirist lies in the

fact that the comedy writer's motive is not to give his personal opinion or judgement about the

story he tells. On the contrary, the concern of the satirist is the morality of the object which is

described, thus his novel is likely to be both partial and tendentious. He does not tell the story

for itself but to make the reader aware of his judgement. “For him the human shortcomings

are not matters for pure contemplation; they must be exposed, held up to derision or made to

look as hideous as he believes them to be.”9 Consequently, satire is aimed at criticizing

something or someone not only to divert people but to make them aware of the author's

judgement. The satirist wants the reader to realize that something is wrong in the way society

acts and it is his first concern when he writes his satire. He wants to bring to light the

shortcomings of society. I suggested here the definition of the type of satire I am going to deal

with, taking into account the elements James Sutherland provides us with: satire is the critical

depiction of society or of any object of society made by an artist whose aim is to enlighten the

reader. In our case, Northanger Abbey is a satire in which Jane Austen portrays her society

and questions its conventions and values. She mocks eighteenth century literature and more

specifically Radcliffean Gothic literature.

We will also study Northanger Abbey's parodic aspects: “An amusing or mocking

imitation of the style of a writer or speaker, usually requiring a basic parallelism of form and

style and sudden unexpected twists. Parody often emphasizes and exaggerates typical features

7 Definition of Satire – Oxford Companion for the English Language

8 James Sutherland, English Satire, p. 4
9 Ibid

9
of the original text or performance in order to make a point and, whether friendly or hostile,

exploits any possible weakness.”10. Jane Austen imitates the style of Ann Radcliffe, by

creating similar characters, adopting the same tone in a plot which resembles the original. The

popularity of Northanger Abbey is in fact mainly due to the success of its parody. Austen

managed to incorporate humour in the Gothic Novel, using satirical irony abundantly and

transforming a virtuous and talented heroine into a mediocre and plain girl. Indeed, we will

see in this dissertation that Catherine Morland is an anti-heroine whose story is a good pretext

to mock Ann Radcliffe's heroine. Austen kills two birds with one stone as the protagonist also

enables her to achieve her first authentic satire.

This dissertation will therefore be centred on the idea that Jane Austen wrote her

parody in order to satirize the Gothic novel and introduce humour in the genre. To some

degree, she also intended to satirize the Novel, considered at the time as very fashionable but

sometimes threatening to achieve a proper education.

The form of the novel will be first analysed as it is mainly through language and style that a

novel by Jane Austen has to be studied. The way narration works, the way the heroine is

depicted and the various genres of the novel help us to understand how the novel is

constructed. Northanger Abbey is indeed multi-faceted and its originality is part of what

makes Austen's novel humorous. I will also study the satire, through the study of genders and

genres, the importance given to literature and the Gothic affiliation of some characters.

Finally, I will examine the parody in a stricter way, linking Northanger Abbey to its model,

The Mysteries of Udolpho.

10 Definition of Parody from Oxford Companion fo the English Language

10
 Part 1
-
Formal Mystery

11
Chapter 1 – The Art of Narration

Very often Northanger Abbey is studied as a parody and its other aspects are rather

neglected. It was long relegated at the end of the list of Jane Austen's best works:

“Northanger Abbey is in some respects the Cinderella among Jane Austen's novels”11. It is

true to say that Northanger Abbey is not the first novel to be mentioned when talking about

Jane Austen. As far as I am concerned, I had never heard about the novel until I became

interested in the Gothic genre. What I am willing to show is that this book does not deserve

this treatment, for it is on many aspects a brilliant novel. It is not possible to accurately say

what Jane Austen's first intention was when she wrote the book. This is why my first analysis

will focus on the form of the novel as a mystery.

In Northanger Abbey, the narration is quite uncommon. Generally, when the reader is

confronted to a novel, he does not really expect the narrator to talk to him or confide in him.

When we are dealing with confessions or with a diary, the narrator may talk to his reader

directly, but it is not likely to happen in a novel. Jane Austen breaks the rules and makes her

narrator intervene in the diegesis more often than not. The narrator dispels the illusion of the

novel by intervening several times to comment, explain details and give clues as to the

ending. At first, we do not really know whether the narrator is a character of the story or not.

The narrator addresses the reader quite naturally: “it may be stated, for the reader's more

certain information lest the following pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what

her character is meant to be; that her heat was affectionate […] and her mind about as

ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is”12. The narrator here

mentions the reader as if it were quite natural to do so. The reader can infer that he is dealing

11 David Blair, Introduction of Northanger Abbey, p. 1

12 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 2

12
with an extradiegetic narrator, as he or she does not intervene or take part in the story as a

character. Yet, no information is given about this mysterious narrator who keeps telling his

opinion and giving advice to the reader. Whoever it is, he is nevertheless omnipresent in the

progression of the story. So we have here a mysterious narrator, who writes the story of

someone he does not seem to be related to. The effect it produces is the impression that there

is no barrier between the author and the narrator. They are one and the same person. I also

tend to believe that the author is a true Gothic storyteller. What I mean by true is an author

who does not want to mock the genre but, on the contrary, a narrator willing to tell a Gothic

story. It is as if Jane Austen were pretending to be another writer, asking us to trust her. She is

creating a close relationship between the narrator and the reader to make her narrator

legitimate and trustworthy.

Narration is all the more uncommon as some words which would normally not be

“allowed” in the diegesis are here said very naturally. For instance, the word “heroine” is

constantly employed, like in these two quotations: “But when a young lady is to be an

heroine, the perverseness of forty, surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must

and will happen to throw a hero in her way”13; “here fortune was more favourable to our

heroine”14. A reader would not expect the narrator to tell him who the hero is and why he is a

hero. It is part of the literary contract linking the author and the reader. The reader has to

guess who the hero is on his own. I suppose it to be very rare that one would find the word

“hero” or “heroin” in a novel because it is not supposed to be that explicit. This is a device

Austen uses to create a distance between the reader and her heroine 15. She does not want the

reader to identify to Catherine Morland. On the contrary, she wants him to laugh at her and

13 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 1

14 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 3
15 Henry N. Rogers « Of Course You Can Trust Me! »: Jane Austen's Narrator in Northanger Abbey.

13
feel superior to her. By telling “this person is my heroine” the irony is strong. She implies that

without this piece of information no one would believe Catherine is the heroine because the

appearances all seem to be against her.

Moreover, the evolution in the narration is very transparent. The narrator always

intervenes between each twists and turns of the plot to make the reader aware that something

new is happening. This device is as unusual in a novel as the previous elements we have just

seen. The frontiers between events are usually blurred by subtle transitions. Usually, the

narrator of the novel tells his story and the reader will notice where the action starts and where

it ends thanks to the clues given by the narrator. But it is implicitly made, through the use of

words, breaks in the rhythm and other devices. Sometimes a close analysis is required to

really see how the story is divided. Here there is no transition, the narrator says that

something will happen, and that this event needs our focus. For instance, as Catherine is about

to meet Henry Tilney, the narrator tells us: “and now was the time for an heroine”16, and later:

“every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment”17. It is as if the narrator felt

the need to guide the reader in his reading. This device is aimed at fooling the reader. Because

the narrator announces that something is to happen, the reader expects something great but he

soon realizes that it is not that important. This is what happens after reading: “now was the

time for an heroine”. Catherine goes to her first ball, she is nicely dressed, we expect a man to

talk to her or compliment her, but all that happens is: “Not one, however, started with

rapturous wonder on beholding her, no whisper of eager inquiry ran round the room, nor was

she once called a divinity by anybody”. The expected event is missing from the page, it is as if

the narrator was playing with narration and with the reader. Another instance is the use of

16 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 2

17 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 10

14
negatives forms which emphasizes the fact that “nothing” happens. As a consequence, the

reader is toyed with. By the creation of these false announcements, the narration or meta-

narration announces a new prospect to him: “you're reading a Gothic novel, trust me”.

Therefore Austen's narration reinforces the character's naiveté and her blatant disabilities as a

heroine.

Chapter 2 – A Heroine in Disguise

The heroine is a mystery, just like the narration and the genre of this novel are

mysteries. The narrator keeps repeating Catherine is a heroine, but she is what we can call an

anti-heroine. She misunderstands everything, gets excited and ultimately becomes

disappointed. She believes herself to be educated and sensible because she reads books and

yet she is the one who is fooled by everybody. She is supposed to look like Emily St Aubert

from The Mysteries of Udolpho but they clearly have nothing in common. Emily St Aubert is

endowed with special gifts, for instance, poetry writing and drawing, whereas Catherine is not

able to draw anything and certainly cannot write. The irony of being called a heroine is that

she believes herself to be one. Because she reads Gothic novels, Catherine is transported in an

imaginary world where she is a heroine as well. But there is nothing heroic about her story:

she leaves her parents, visits Bath, visits Northanger Abbey, goes back to her parents' and gets

married. The narrator has a definition of “heroin” which is rather odd as it does not fit usual

standards. The traditional hero is someone who has a special gift to accomplish heroic

purposes: ingenuity, courage, brilliance. For the narrator, the hero is someone who has been

educated through books: “But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for an heroine; she

read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations

15
which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.”18 Such a

heroine is also supposed to have a special ability for the arts: “Her greatest deficiency was in

the pencil – she had no notion of drawing – not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's

profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the true

heroic height”. The definition given by the narrator is, of course, ironic - a definition Emily St

Aubert is the illustration of. The narrator needs to explain why Catherine is a “heroine” so he

justifies his claim by saying that although Catherine does not excel at drawing, she reads

enough books to be a literary heroine. Jane Austen is mocking two elements in just a few

lines: she mocks the heroine of The Mysteries of Udolpho and mocks the link between

heroism and literary education. Catherine herself believes the definition given by the narrator

since she is convinced that she reads enough books to be able to have the main role in one.

She thinks she knows what to expect and how to react in similar real situations she reads in

novels. For instance, the reader has access to Catherine's mind when she wants to explore the

Abbey's secret chamber:

The erection of the monument itself could not in the smallest degree affect her doubts
of Mrs Tilney's actual decease. Were she even to descend into the family vault where
her ashes were supposed to slumber […] Catherine had read too much not to be
perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced, and a
supposititious funeral carried on.19

Catherine expects to find horrid things in these apartments because it is precisely the kind of
details she notices in her novels.

The theme of the heroine is highly problematic in this novel because we cannot know

whether Catherine is an actual heroine or not. She is not endowed with traditional attributes.

18 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 1

19 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 24

16
She is an anti-heroine because she succeeds in spite of her disabilities and her shortcomings.

She is the main protagonist of the story and the story revolves around her. Moreover, even

though the appearances seem to be against her, she does accomplish heroic acts. Throughout

the novel, Catherine avoids traps: she does not become superficial like Mrs Allen, she defeats

the villains embodied by the Thorpes and the Tilneys and eventually gets married with the

man she loves. Marylin Butler argues that Northanger Abbey must be considered as a novel

first, before being read as a parody20. The story of Catherine leaving her native village and her

parents to go to Bath, her progression towards reason and awakening constitute a fictional

story on its own, which can exist beyond the humourous aspects: she “may not be a 'heroine'

in the idealized mode of sentimental fiction, but she is a very good heroine at the level which

matters”21.

What is implicit is that Catherine is supposed to represent the typical lady of the

eighteenth century. Jane Austen mocks the idea according to which young ladies have to read

Gothic novels for their education. She makes a clear criticism of Mrs Radcliffe's novels and

the effects it produces on girls at that time: “Charming as were all Mrs Radcliffe's works, and

charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human

nature, at least in the midland counties of England, was to be looked for.” 22 Society thought it

was fashionable to read Gothic novels because it was entertaining, well-written, moralizing

and showed the true face of human nature. Nevertheless, Jane Austen does not agree with that.

For her, the Gothic Novel does not provide a faithful representation of life. One of the goals

she probably had in mind when writing Northanger Abbey is to provide a true representation

of the human mind. It also foreshadows the importance of remembering that literature is not

20 Marylin Butler, Jane Austen and The War of Ideas, p. 178

21 Ibid
22 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 25

17
real life. There is a reflection about literature itself and how it influences people, especially

young ladies.

Chapter 3 – The Questions of Genre

Like many Gothic Novels, Northanger Abbey is not characterized by only one genre, it

is multi-faceted. The various genres we are going to examine are very efficient in making the

novel amusing.

The first genre we can associate Northanger Abbey with is, first and foremost, the

Gothic Novel and this for several reasons. First, the title tells us something about the

atmosphere of the novel. Like many Gothic stories, the title mentions a location. In such

novels, the main location is never a mere house or a random construction, it is meant to be

gloomy and mournful. That is why the characters often visit places like castles, abbeys,

churches or monasteries. Here we are presented with an abbey, which soon becomes a cold

and dark place where any creaking sound becomes the cry of the worst creature in the

characters' imagination. Incidentally, it is what Henry Tilney suggests when he teases

Catherine about her mental representation of his home: “And are you prepared to encounter

all the horrors that a building such as “what one reads about” may produce?”23 It is even

more explicit in this quotation: “Will not your mind misgive you, when you find yourself in

this gloomy chamber – too lofty and extensive for you,[...]its walls hung with tapestry

exhibiting figures as large as life, and the bed, of dark green stuff or purple velvet, presenting

even a funeral appearance. Will not your heart sink within you?”24 The name of the place

inevitably conveys mystery and darkness, especially because these locations are usually

23 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey Chapter 20

24 Ibid

18
where the murders and the horrid events take place.

In the story, Northanger Abbey is also a mystery for Catherine because it is where

Henry's mother died in mysterious circumstances. The place is made even more mysterious

because of this tragic event. The plot in itself can be interpreted as Gothic. They are several

tendencies one can notice in the majority of the Gothic novels and it is precisely what Jane

Austen is mocking. The young heroin is naïve and from a modest family and the villain is a

seducing aristocrat. Social difference is a recurrent theme in Gothic novels. In Northanger

Abbey, Catherine is the archetype of the Gothic heroin in the sense that she represents the

perfect victim. She is a young, naïve girl from a family of ten children, the daughter of a

clergyman from the countryside. She meets greedy villain, thirsty for her fantacized fortune

such as the Thorpes and ends up trapped in the abbey by the ultimate villain. General Tilney

represents the archetypical Gothic villain, a predator who reminds us of a powerful, proud and

violent Montoni in Ann Radcliffe's fiction, or even a Dracula – although Dracula was written

later than Northanger Abbey.

The plot is also undoubtedly Gothic in the sense that the order established by society

and by the family sphere is no longer real and the hero has nothing to rely upon. In

Northanger Abbey Catherine is confronted with sinful characters, vices and selfishness. She

comes from a peaceful atmosphere and arrives in Bath, where people never act innocently, for

they always have some kind of motivation. When she eventually leaves Bath and arrives in

Northanger, she realizes how dark the human mind can be. She discovers in one of her

brother's letters how her friend Isabella broke her brother's heart by deceiving him with

Captain Tilney. She also finds out that General Tilney, after he graciously invited her, chased

her away from his abbey, because she had no money and no title. At the end, order is restored

and the words of moral wisdom from the author inevitably follow:“I leave it to be settled by

19
whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of his work be altogether to recommend

parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.”25 Here Austen's recommendations echo Ann

Radcliffe's in The Mysteries of Udolpho: “O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the

vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, [...] and that innocence [...] finally

triumph over misfortune!”. It reminds us of Richardson's Pamela. His eponymous heroin is

rewarded at the end of the novel after she resisted her master. Ann Radcliffe and Richardson

have the same intention, that is to encourage their readers to always be virtuous as villainy is

in the end always punished and virtue rewarded. Jane Austen's fiction also resembles a Gothic

novel in that way. Like in Radcliffe's novels, virtue triumphs over villainy. Isabella Thorpe for

instance, plays with James Morland's feelings and her crime is punished when Captain Tilney

uses her like she used James Morland.

But the novel is multi-faceted and thus it is not a purely Gothic. The reader will not be

deceived by the story of Northanger Abbey. If it resembles so much a Gothic Novel it is

because it is a parody. All the elements are chosen to resemble Gothic Fiction but they are

actually meant to mock The Mysteries of Udolpho and other novels written by Ann Radcliffe.

In Gothic novels, characters are usually expected to make a morbid discovery. I have in mind

late Gothic novels: Egaeus26 discovering Berenice's teeth in a box, Basil27 unveiling Dorian's

hideous portrait in the attic or Clara Wieland 28 finding someone in her closet. When Catherine

Morland gets up in the middle of the night awakened by a storm, she seems to be driven by

strange forces to open the wardrobe, such suspense is unsettling. In The Romance of the

Forest29, Adeline finds a strange manuscript recounting the story of a former captive of the

25 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 30

26 Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice
27 Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
28 Charles Brockden, Wieland
29 Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest

20
Abbey in which she is herself held prisoner 30. Jane Austen makes her own passage hilarious

since Catherine's discovery is an inventory of linen:

Her quick eyes directly fell on a roll of paper pushed back into the further part of the
cavity, apparently for concealment, and her feelings at that moment were
indescribable. Her heart fluttered, her knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She
seized, with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript […] Her greedy eye glanced
rapidly over a page. She started as its import. Could it be possible, or did not her
senses play her false? - An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters
seemed all that was before her!31

Like many novels of the eighteenth century, Austen's work mocks the sentimental

novel. Jane Austen teases Ann Radcliffe's style from beginning to end. Yet she does not totally

reject the model she is mocking. Indeed, by mocking Ann Radcliffe's moral substance, one

cannot be sure whether she praises virtue or villainy. This issue is actually what is put into

question in her own work. Throughout the novel, Catherine is not always virtuous and Austen

tends to “reward filial disobedience”. Nevertheless, Catherine Morland does triumph over

villainy. She may not have been so virtuous in the beginning, because she was mistaken, naïve

and ignorant, but at the end, she has an epiphany and she becomes enlightened and capable of

reason. She may not have performed any noble or heroic deed or sacrificed herself but she did

defeat the villains.

Another genre could characterize Northanger Abbey and it is as such compatible with

the Gothic novel: the Bildungsroman. Indeed, the novel recounts a girl's journey from

childhood to womanhood. By meeting different people and going to different places like

Bath's Upper rooms, Pump Room and Northanger Abbey, Catherine learns about life. It is part

of her training as a lady and as a heroine. Henry Tilney is like a mentor to Catherine, she
30 J.M.S Tompkins, Ann Radcliffe and Her Influence on Later Writers, p. 146
31 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 22

21
admires him and wants to impress him. Isabella is a kind of inspiration as well. It is her who

tells Catherine what she should read and how she should behave with men. Catherine

discovers what friendship really is, Isabella is like a sister to her, showing her how to act in

society and teaching her how to become a lady. She also discovers that sometimes people are

not what they seem to be and that they act out of pure spite. Her most important achievement

is when she understands that reality does not necessarily resemble the reality she read in

books. Isabella Thorpe makes Catherine read Gothic novels as they are very popular amongst

young ladies. This kind of books is very appealing to Catherine because it is scary and erotic:

villains try to seduce young ladies and young ladies manage to resist them. It is a kind of

fantasy for her to become the heroin of a Gothic novel and get trapped in a castle.

Unfortunately, she is so absorbed in her reading that she cannot distinguish what she reads

from reality. When she eventually realizes it, she experiences a kind of epiphany as all the

pieces seem to come together like a jigsaw puzzle. She understands why everybody was

suddenly showing interest in her. Catherine also discovers love and the story ends with her

wedding like in most of Jane Austen's novels.

Finally, the aspect of the genre that interested most people when they read and studied

Northanger Abbey was the satire. It was meant to satirize behaviours, conventions and

literature as we will see in our second part. We can call it a satire because it is a distorted

portrait of society, whose aim is to enlighten the reader by showing its defects. Jane Austen

denounces superficiality, through the portrait of Mrs Allen, greed and avidity through the

portraits of the Thorpes and naiveté through the portrait of Catherine. In her novels, Jane

Austen often deals with specific behavioural features like pride in Pride and Prejudice and

Emma, or cupidity, hypocrisy and jealousy in Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility. It

22
is also a satire criticizing literature. As I said before, this novel is a reflection on literature.

Catherine Morland is the archetype of the dreamy lady who wants real life to resemble the

novels she reads and who wants to model her attitudes and thoughts on the characters she

reads about. It is not just a Gothic novel or a parody. Northanger Abbey is an essay on

literature.

23