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The Social Norms Of Women In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

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In Jane Austen’s novel, Northanger Abbey, she explores the societal norms of women in the late 1700s through the protagonist, Catherine Morland. She takes an alternate route in dissecting how women of different social classes and upbringings acted by following the middle class sheltered schoolgirl as opposed to a wealthy upper class woman. Catherine has little to no real life experience. Austen shows the innocence of Catherine and how oblivious she is to the real world through conversations where she does not pick up on the underlying meanings, the depiction of her wild imagination, and specifically through the interaction between her and John Thorpe in the middle of chapter 9. The first way Jane Austen conveys the innocence of Catherine is …show more content…

There are many times throughout the novel where Catherine’s imagination gets the best of her and she must explore some silly fantasy. When she first arrives at Henry Tilney’s home, Northanger Abbey, she immediately wants to explore as if she were a little kid at Disney World. Her room has a mysterious chest that she tells herself she must get open because it has to contain some dark secrets inside. However, it only held a cloth and a few grocery lists inside. This scene is a perfect description of how her young 17 year old mind got the best of her. It shows how foolish she is to believe that one of the many Gothic novels she reads would actually come to life in the Tilney’s house. Her wild thoughts become so strong that she begins to question if General Tilney murdered his own wife. Catherine says that General Tileny “certainly had been an unkind husband” and that “he must have been dreadfully cruel to her” (181). Anyone else would be crazy to have these suspicions of the General, but Catherine wants to satisfy her imagination by creating a Gothic novel story line during her stay at the Abbey. Just because he is not the nicest man does not mean he would commit murder to the woman he loved. This again shows her childish tendencies in real world situations and makes it obvious to the reader that her fantasies are not practical and would never come

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As it says on page 17, “— I consider the line of stores and restaurants across the street, but they look tired and ‘between’. In a week or two, the gift shop window will have splashy beach towels and plastic sand buckets, the hotel will show off the ‘no’ lit up with the ‘vacancy’ and the—” This shows how when looking around, Catherine takes everything in around her. It also shows her being wishful in another way. Another quote that shows a similar idea was on page nineteen, “Drawing makes me find the curves, the shadows, the ins and outs, and the beautiful parts.” This, like the quote before, also shows how much Catherine notices.

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While she was there, the old Jewish woman’s words finally gained some meaning. She realized that she didn’t have to be at her home to be herself, she would always be Catherine. This made Catherine more mature, she changed by knowing that she was, and would always be, herself. She says, “I am like the Jews in our hall, driven from England, from one life to another, and yet for them exile was no exile.” (Cushman 202).

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The lowness of the bed is due to not only her physique, but could indicate how grounded to reality she is rather than the rest of New York Society, who have their heads in the clouds. Even at a time like sleeping, which gives people the chance to fly as high as they like into their own fantasies, she remains close to the ground. It can be assumed, in her her pursuit to avoid becoming like the multitude and losing her grip on reality. It can also be due to the heavy burdens of her past that she carries on her shoulders that prevent her from taking part. This sets her apart from others and depicts the inner independence of Catherine that makes up a part of her extravagant

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Her account is also pretty selfish, as she thinks of no one but herself. However, by the second quote, it is obvious that Catherine has changed. She compares herself to the Jews that stopped by her manor, meaning that she is also thinking of others. By the end of Catherine’s narration of her year, she has grown more thoughtful,

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1107 Words | 5 Pages

Her goal was to show, no matter what, there will be occasion of which will bring them back into human drama. Also, Albert Camus explains how to generate a meaning form a finite existence. During the movie, Catherine keeps mentioning that we have to choose things that make us happy, of which is similar to Albert Camus trying to explain that, in the myth of Sisyphus, if he had chosen the boulder and been ok with the punishment he was given, he would’ve been happy. Throughout the movie Catherine continuously explains that we must chose things to truly be happy. Towards the end, the myth comes back around.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

Patience becomes one important attribute that Catherine has to master during this part of her life. Catherine encounters a man named Mr. Edwards and tricks him by acting in the guise of a sweet, innocent woman. The gullible man suspects nothing unpleasant out of Catherine henceforth. Then she seduces Mr. Edwards into acquiescing a house where she can temporarily reside. It appears Catherine begins to wisely think further ahead in her life as she grows older, for the actions she takes affects her ability to reach the life she desires.

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How would it feel to forego all sense of conformity within a society to have relationship with a loved one? Has it ever come to mind that one could project their feelings towards another as disgust, only later to reveal them as love? In Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, she portrays Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy to experience this exact struggle; Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy both find a way to challenge specific reputations they are expected to uphold among their social classes, so they can ultimately be with each other. Throughout the novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen draws a connection among the frequent aspects of prejudice, social order, and reputation to enhance the progressive love between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.

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and Miss Tilney develop with good intentions, yet her immaturity change the dynamics to become more of a doting relationship. In both instances when Catherine meets the Tilneys for the first time, she is polite and conversational, but Catherine also “was desirous of being acquainted with [Miss Tilney]” (Austen 50). In Catherine’s meeting of the Tilneys, she possesses an element of her immaturity, as her emotions and attention scatter back and forth between the Tilneys and the Thorpes. Her attachments to both women, Isabella Thorpe and Miss Tilney, display Catherine’s childlike admiration and naive adoration. In the argument of the argument of Waldo Glock, he refers Catherine to have an “impressionable mind occasionally interpret[ing] scenes at Bath in the light of her reading of Gothic romance" (Glock 33).

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Catherine Called Birdy took place in Lincolnshire, England around the time of 1290. The protagonist of the book; Catherine, is a 14-year-old girl who is part of a fairly wealthy family, yet she acts like she does not belong to a family like this. Her father tries to marry her to other men, but she finds any excuse not to marry. The events in this novel are shown too take place during 1290, because a 14-year-old girl during the current time period would not be in the same situation which Catherine was in. To illustrate, “Instead I am the daughter of a country knight with but ten servants, seventy villagers, no minstrel, and acres of unhemmed linen.

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In the Jane Austen novel, Northanger Abbey, the author successfully satirizes the elements and forms of Gothic Literature through characters. The title itself has a gothic feel evoking the picture of a distant perhaps abandoned abbey, but the story is completely not about that. Austen criticizes Catherine’s interest in gothic novels tying in the gothic idea of supernatural into realism. The author doesn't want women to be distracted from reality, thus, satirizes the gothic genre making it clear that domestic novels for women are more beneficial. Throughout the novel Austen also utilizes Catherine to depict gender stereotypes that is frequently seen in gothic novels.

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1098 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.

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2102 Words | 9 Pages

At the beginning of the novel, Catherine is described as a wild and rebellious child. However, that changes after her stay with the Linton’s. When she returns from her stay her “manners were much improved,” and “instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house…there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in” (46). Catherine was tempted by the way of life the Linton’s lived and, to fit in, has concealed her wild and rebellious nature. She confides in her housekeeper that she loves Heathcliff, but can’t marry him because it would “degrade” her (71).

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1332 Words | 6 Pages

We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started but we got gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms." (38).   The fact Catherine supports herself financially and wants to strive and do better at what she does, along with the fact she shares a room and travels with her girlfriends are signs of a strong degree of independence. Not once does Catherine 's name come up in the novel associated with a Male in any type of dating or "love" matter.

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1857 Words | 8 Pages

“We see Ferguson and Barkley in conventionally romantic settings. On the three occasions when Frederic Henry interrupts the two women, they have been sitting alone in the pleasant places where the main, heterosexual relationship will flourish.” (Mandel) Although this is an interesting reading of the character it is not one that I believe to be true. The reader is not given much of an insight into Catherine’s life since the story is told from Henry’s point of view.

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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.

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