Academy Award winning actress, Viola Davis, once said that the stories of ordinary people can be the most compelling. This is because most people are ordinary and so they relate to people like themselves in literature and art. In Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Austen uses sarcasm, understatements and characterization of Catherine’s family to characterize Catherine as ordinary and plain. After describing the way Catherine looks, Austen explains that she only goes in gardens to create mischief. This is described as one of her “propensities” and it is said that “her abilities were quite extraordinary”. Because there is nothing extraordinary about picking flowers that are forbidden, this sarcastic sentence implies that there is nothing extraordinary