Doing Gothic in college for my English Lit class, I decided to read Northanger Abbey because it didn’t seem Gothic although really it is and includes many elements. Austen decides to explore more of the Gothic made famous by Ann Radcliffe in The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Catherine Morland is the main protagonist in this novel; she seems to live a predominantly normal life but she’s always had her imagination wrapped up in the things she read. When she’s asked by a friend of the family to go to Bath outside of her average country life it’s a world away.
When she does, she discovers a chaotic unfamiliar place full of a type of living and a type of people that I feel at first she doesn’t quite understand.
What I love about Catherine, is that rather than succumb to the little country girl she is and give in, she uses her understanding and love of books to read the people that surround her like she reads the characters in her books. She uses the magic that books give us to make the transition from her simple, rural life to the sophisticated ways of Bath in the late 18th century.
The gothic aspects of this novel don’t seem as obvious in the first part of the novel, but as it continues elements are introduced such as the setting of the Abbey itself, and the ambiguity of certain characters (whom I will not name in case anyone chooses to read this).
I’m not going to pretend that this novel wasn’t hard to get into at first but it becomes so much more easier as you learn more about Catherine and the way of the world.
I think what we can take from such an early work of Austen is something rather special if you ask me. That even in the most unusual or uncomfortable of situations we can use our understanding of the world we get from the fictional books we love to adapt and learn to cope with the confusion of the real world.
Sometimes I believe it can be odd how it’s much simpler to relate to a fictional reality rather than our own. I argue, isn’t that the point? Aren’t fictional novels there to help us realise that no matter what we can always find our path in the reality we coincide with.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
