ipl-logo

In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey Is A Bildungsroman

1094 Words5 Pages

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is a Bildungsroman, a coming of age story that focuses on the psychological development of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. This essay will analyse the language and narrative techniques of the excerpt, and discuss how it suggests vicissitudes in Catherine’s personal perspectives and relationships. In addition, it will discuss the ‘domestic gothic’ and abuse ubiquitous in ordinary situations. Furthermore, it will argue how Austen’s rhetorical techniques work to encourage reader interest as well as exercising perception when distinguishing between appearance and reality. Finally, it will conclude by briefly discussing the significance of the excerpt within the novel’s wider themes. Austen creates bathos by …show more content…

Catherine realises the oppression under which Eleanor lives, as fantasy, gives way to cruelty, Ultimately, the General’s disregard for Catherine’s safety, and welfare,’ especially on a Sunday and to a clergyman’s daughter with no money’ (AA316, CD2,) acts as an epiphany for Austen’s Bildungsroman as Catherine comes of age, and awakens to the reality of the General’s totalitarianism. The excerpt denotes motif in Austen’s didactic novel, and depicts the moral lesson of self-awareness. Hence, Catherine realises that she has been not only insulted, but endangered, as she is not a woman of property. The connection between wealth and her physical security becomes frighteningly apparent. Through Catherine, Austen not only points out the assumptions and incongruities of the Gothic novel, but also makes Catherine the focal point of one of the novel 's main concerns: growing up. In the process of maturity, Catherine trades in her faulty assumptions and her dubious judgment for a more rational and experienced attitude, and trades in her captivating reading habits for actually living in

Show More
Related

  • Catherine Called Birdy Book Report

    738 Words  | 3 Pages

    You are lucky, Little Bird, for you have wings. But you must learn to master them. Look at the baron’s hawk there on her perch. Just because she doesn’t flap her wings all the time doesn’t mean she can’t fly. ”(Cushman 83).

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In Wuthering Heights

    978 Words  | 4 Pages

    Who better would reveal what happens in closed doors of families in 1800’s United Kingdom with great practice of language than one who had the skills and the experience to? As she, according to bio., Emily Bronte, lived from 1818 to 1848, in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, she wrote poems and novels under her and her sisters: Charlotte and Anne Bronte’s pseudonym “Ellis Bell”. In her only published novel, Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte authored the narration of two families: Earnshaws and Linton to cognizance their decisions and their motives at Thrushcross Grange. Through Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean’s narration, as well as Catherine Earnshaw’s diary entries, she composed a plot of two falling deeply in love but never marrying. Although the novel

    Read More

  • Northanger Abbey A Bildungsroman Analysis

    1084 Words  | 5 Pages

    Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is a Bildungsroman, a coming of age story that focuses on the psychological development of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. This essay will analyse the language and narrative techniques of the extract, and discuss how it suggests vicissitudes in Catherine’s personal perspectives and relationships. In addition, it will discuss the ‘domestic gothic’ and abuse ubiquitous in ordinary situations. Furthermore, it will argue how Austen’s rhetorical techniques work to encourage reader interest as well as exercising perception when distinguishing between appearance and reality. Finally, it will conclude by briefly discussing the significance of the extract within the novel’s wider themes.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

    1098 Words  | 5 Pages

    Austen creates bathos, by using subtle causticness and parody, and intertextually burlesquing, influential sensationalist and sentimental novels of the time, particularly Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Essentially, by writing in this style, Austen emphasises the ordinariness, patriarchal abuse, and general oppression of women that was present then in everyday domestic life (Realisms, p. 59). These subtle narrative techniques, were key elements Austen used to modify public perception of the novel’s expectations, which conveys the concept of ‘reading’ itself, and defines the novel as a genre.

    Read More

  • The Path To Self Discovery In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

    1515 Words  | 7 Pages

    The path to self discovery is the most terrifying, yet the most rewarding journey a person can experience. Jane Austen portrays this journey throughout her novel Pride and Prejudice. All through the novel the reader gets to endure the ups and downs of this journey with Elizabeth Bennet. She begins off the book very prideful on the fact that she is different than her society. As well, she prides herself on knowing people and being able to read them very easily, unlike her older sister Jane.

    Read More

  • Lucy's Duality In Dracula

    506 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Victorian society, women had the choice between two roles: the pure woman or the fallen woman. Bram Stoker plays with these anxieties revolving around female sexuality – he follows the gothic tradition of innocent damsel in distress against looming evil. The narrative structure Stoker imploys to the text through intertextuality reveals multiple point of view distinguishing a duality in Lucy - her true self and 'thing'. In order to cope with Lucy’s worsening condition, the male authoritative figures of the text assign a duality present in Lucy to make sense of her shifting from “pure woman” to “fallen woman”. Stoker exhibits in the structure of the multi-faceted narrative how certain characters are unable to cope with the duality present

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis In Pride And Prejudice

    794 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Victorian era, women were forced to marry, as they needed the security of a man. However, Austen uses logos to question the real inequality in the Victorian era’s ideology, that a woman is incomplete without a man. This allows the reader to analyse the state of society from a different perspective. Austen also starts her sentence with an assertive tone further supported with her firm word choices, through using the words, ‘…truth universally acknowledged’. These words are important in her building ethos allowing her to deliver her controversial message.

    Read More

  • Emotional And Character Development In Bronte's Jane Eyre

    1588 Words  | 7 Pages

    Bronte 's Jane Eyre transcends the genres of literature to depict the emotional and character development of its protagonist. Although no overall genre dominates the novel exclusively, the vivid use of setting contributes towards the portrayal of Bronte’s bildungsroman (Realisms, 92) and defines the protagonist’s struggles as she grapples with her inner-self, and the social expectations of her gender. The novel incorporates Jane’s frequent conflicts, oppression, isolation and self-examination as she defends her identity and independence. Set amongst five separate locations, Bronte’s skilful use of literal and metaphorical landscapes, nature, and imagery, skilfully intertwines with the plot and denotes each phrase of her maturity.

    Read More

  • The Plots Of Deception In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

    999 Words  | 4 Pages

    The notion that a young woman must be either engaged or pursuing an engagement was a common standard for women in the 19th century. Women looking for an engagement, must uphold high standards with strong morals as well as being wholly pure of both body and mind. Jane Austen depicts the main characters of her novels as being strong individuals in the midst of these societal standards. These significant morals in Northanger Abbey, influence the characters, such as Catherine and Isabella, in how they make their decisions. Additionally, the main character Catherine Morland, a young lady, learns the ways of presenting herself in the best light possible.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility

    1277 Words  | 6 Pages

    Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is a great example of her works that looks at the role of women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Austen shows us the gender roles inflicted on women during this time period and how they are perceived. We see the strict gender roles that women were adhered to and the struggle for identity as a woman. Central to this novel is the vulnerability of women and the expectations surrounding gender influence everything and produce define results. Gender definitely determines and structures the world in which these characters live.

    Read More

  • Northanger Abbey Comparison

    1440 Words  | 6 Pages

    Though at first the melodrama and overplaying of the imagination scenes may seem to be a typical blunder on the part of the movie makers, they are actually consistent with Catherine’s character and poke fun at the melodrama often portrayed in movies of similar genres to Northanger Abbey. This parody on other films mirrors Austen’s parody of the gothic novel. Still, on the whole, there is something to be desired when looking at how the gothic does and does not find its way into the movies. Though the imagination scenes certainly do portray gothic scenarios as Catherine perceives them, they poke more fun at overdramatized film adaptations of romantic and 19th century novels than they do at the genre’s themselves. Furthermore, the imagination scenes are

    Read More

  • Similarity Between Pride And Prejudice And Persuasion

    1828 Words  | 8 Pages

    1.4 Literature overview At the end of the nineteen century, was published a book, for the first time, concerning Jane Austen’s literary work. Exactly in 1890, the writer Godwin Smith gave for printing Life of Jane Austen, and from then he started a new era which values the author’s literary legacy, so others begun to write critics; thus, this moment marked the first step of the authorized criticism, focused on Austen’s writing style. In conformity with B.C. Southam Critical Heritage, the criticism attributed to Jane had increased after 1870 and became formal and organized. Therefore, “we see the novels praised for their elegance of form and their surface ‘finish’; for the realism of their fictional world, the variety and vitality of their characters;

    Read More

  • Social Status Between Men And Women In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

    2801 Words  | 12 Pages

    Jane Austen lived in a period at the turn from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century, which was a period of mixed thoughts, which conflicted all the times. Among all the conflicts, the most important one was the disparity in social status between men and women. Not only men’s status was in the center of the society but also common people thought it was right that men were much more important than women were. In those days girls were neither allowed nor expected to study much because they did not have to work for a living. They were supposed to stay at home and look beautiful in order to get suitable husbands.

    Read More

  • Essay On Feminism In Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility

    2036 Words  | 9 Pages

    In Jane Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility she discusses feminism through the challenges women may face in marriage. Austen’s portrayal of her characters Elinor and Marianne demonstrate the struggles and pressures women face. These challenges can be seen through primogeniture, Elinor and Marianne’s approach to love and marriage, and a man’s ability to ruin or help women. The familial succession of assets typically went to the first-born son or the next male heir. In the case of John Dashwood, he inherited Norland estate after the death of his father leaving his half-sisters and stepmother “to quit the neighborhood Norland” and move to a small cottage in Devonshire.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice

    1485 Words  | 6 Pages

    It is evident from reading Austen’s novel; Pride and Prejudice, that she possess a certain sense of empathy towards the female population and the roles they played in society. From the way in which the narrator speaks of the different female characters and how the female characters interact and develop throughout the plot, the women in this novel convey Austen’s distaste for the position women had in society during that period of time. In this essay I will discuss how the female characters view women and their roles in society and how they discuss topics such as; marriage, the ways in which a “proper” lady should behave, the roles of women in the family and finally how Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine in this story, portrays Austen’s subtle notion of rebellion towards these social constructs to which these women are tied to.

    Read More

More about In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey Is A Bildungsroman

Open Document