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For Friday: Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapters 1-6




From the 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey (we might watch a clip later)

NOTE: Northanger Abbey was probably Austen's first true novel, though she started it around the same time she started Sense and Sensibility. However, it was originally called Susan and was written in the form of letters. She sent this novel to a publisher around 1803 and never got a response. She later had to pay to get the manuscript returned to her, even though the publisher still refused to publish it. Since much time had passed, she thoroughly revised the book and re-titled it, but never published it--death got in the way. Her brother published it and her last book, Persuasion, together in 1819. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How does the narrator defend and/or satirize novel reading throughout the opening chapters of Northanger Abbey?  Consider that novels in the late 18th century had become primarily the domain of women, chiefly works of a Gothic/romantic nature such as those Catherine and Isabella discuss in Chapter 6.  Can you tell if the narrator approves of them, or does she find them a bad influence on the women of her time?

Q2: We discussed in class on Wednesday about how Austen is satirizing some of the conventions of Gothic novels, particularly the "Mary Sue" characters who are the best, the brightest, and the most beautiful. Where else do you see her satirizing or poking fun at conventions of novels, romances, or of society itself? Where does she show us the opposite of what we might expect?

Q3: In what way might Northanger Abbey be a response to some of the issues of women and freedom we encountered in Wollstonecraft's Maria? While this is a very different work,  how do we know that both women were interested in the same characters and ideas? Is there anything of Maria in Catherine?

Q4: In Chapter 3, Henry Tilney jokingly informs Catherine that “I have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have not yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and the concert; and how you like the place altogether." Based on this scene and others in Bath, what kind of environment is Bath?  Why might Austen be drawn to satirize such a place in her novel?  (By the way, Austen hated Bath!). 

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