Henry Tilney In Northanger Abbey

Education is a driving theme in Jane Austen’s first novel, Northanger Abbey. Although having an education is a prized possession for those living during the Regency period, without life experience, one does not know how to apply what he or she has learned. Catherine Moreland has been educated in the manner that heroines are expected to be informed, but she is still ignorant due to her lack of life experience. Henry Tilney, a man who has obviously has an academic background, plays the role of a teacher to the young unknowing Catherine. The manner in which Catherine and Henry exhibit their knowledge is quite different—Catherine frequently falls prey to her simple conventions, while Henry is able to observe and then analyze. During her journey

Catherine is supplied with all of the works “heroines must read to supply their memories with,” but she is “left to shift for [herself]” because her mother is too occupied with raising the younger children (7). Without guidance, Catherine is not able to fully understand what she is reading besides the bits and pieces of information she chooses to learn. For example, she learns “that a young woman in love always looks “like Patience on a monument/ Smiling at Grief”” (7). Catherine takes Shakespeare's meaning completely out of context by mashing together quotations that clearly have no correlation. Catherine is also extremely engrossed in the novels she reads, and she begins to believe that her life plays out in the same way that it does for the people in those novels. Rather than applying her own theories of what the world should be like, Catherine accepts that the world already has a fixed setting. For example, Catherine views Isabella Thorpe as a heroine, and even when Isabella goes against what a typical heroine would do in certain situations, Catherine continues to deny the truth and forgives Isabella for her mistakes. In one instance, the two women catch two men staring at them, and even though she initially claims to want to run away, Isabella ends up running after the two men, insisting that one was very handsome. Due to

By doing so, he plays a vital role in Catherine’s transformation from an immature student to a cultured individual. As a very cultured young man, Henry sparks Catherine’s curiosity with his “fluency and spirit” (14). As they become closer and more intimate, they are able to “have great ease and openness in [their] conversation”; this fluidity allows Catherine to become more accustomed to different ways of thinking (221). Unlike Catherine, Henry’s imagination is free and able to separate itself from social normalities, and he is also able to draw from the richness of life. He does not want Catherine to keep her knowledge “a profound secret,” but seems to want her to flaunt her “cultivated understanding” (221). He is the kind of person who “will complain of [her] reserve” and “assure [her] that a franker behavior would make [her] more amiable”, and unlike what Dr. Gregory says, actually be sincere with his complaints (221). Although she learns all of these valuable lessons from Mr. Tinley, the lessons are useless until Catherine encounters her first true