Northanger Abbey, Day 1

Some Notes on Austen's Northanger Abbey

Something shocking will soon come out of London (chapter 14, page 81)

• This moment of miscommunication combines the "horror" of political unrest of the time of writing/initial time of reading 
• with the "horror" of the gothic novel

The Gothic

• a politically charged form
• French Revolution, the "Reign of Terror," twenty-two years of war
• Note the "gothicism" of these passages about the French Revolution
• Helen Maria Williams, from Letters from France, 1796 (Longman 135) 
• Edmund Burke, from Reflections (Longman 113)
  This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children, (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people,) were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king’s body guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women.
•  Violence, chaos, disorder, but also inheritance, usurpation, tyranny
• The Gothic associated with excess--therefore the "anti-gothic" must be moderation, a key Austen word
• We can play the binary game with qualities associated with the gothic
• Gothic: Disorder, Passion, Extraordinary, Supernatural, Excess
• Anti-gothic: Order, Reason, Ordinary, Natural, Moderation

Back to Chapter 14

What's happening here?

• Education by Henry (he's never wrong (83))
• Something shocking (82-83); stupid sister
• Picturesque (80-81); discussion of politics leads to silence
• Consider all the other silences: 
• Chapter 7 (32) when Catherine is fearful of having an opinion
• Catherine's judgment of John Thorpe; of Isabella, etc.
•  And Catherine being lectured by Henry--this will be a key episode in Volume 2
• Education as torment (80)
• Recall that the passage begins with Henry correcting Catherine's grammar (78); Henry being "nice" about her use of the word "nice"
• Guide book language echoed: if a woman knows anything, she should conceal it (83)

Henry Tilney is the source of Catherine's "education" and the passage concludes with the narrator's ironic repetition of Catherine's gushing response: he could never be wrong about anything. If we are skeptical, then we are good readers--Austen wants us always to be skeptical about such such judgments.

All this forces upon us the question, just who is Henry Tilney?

• an "authority"
• her "teacher"/tormentor
• the "new" generation (in contrast to his father)
• knowledgeable about all manner of things, including fashion--a know-it-all?
• sure of himself (the narrator refers to John Thorpe as a "self-assured man"--if Thorpe is self-assured, then what should we call Henry? super-self-assured?)
• conceited (full of himself)
• kind of a prig--yes, he's right about being "nice" about language, but he's not very nice 
• a bully?

Bullies in the novel?

• John Thorpe
• Catherine's friends
• Isabella
• Henry Tilney?
• Others?
• Novel thematizes bullying/tormenting as teaching and as "authority"
• Man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal (10, 54)
• Catherine mistrusts her own authority (9, 47)
• Appeals to Mr. Allen (13, 75) who is given final patriarchal authority (so long as it agrees with Catherine's opinion at least)

Who or what are the authorities in the novel?

• Men
• Books
• narratives of female initiation
• Domestic--the Assembly Rooms of Bath
• Gothic--Northanger Abbey (see Volume 2)
• Conventional Narratives
• Isabella's narrative
• John Thorpe's narrative
• Catherine's story (maybe, in Volume 2)
• Her double must be revealed and punished
• She must submit to Henry's authority 

Why do we need authorities? Education

• Specifically the education of women
• Men
• Books
• Parents--where are the parents in this novel?
• Real Imprisonment
• bullied into agreement or silence by friends and lovers
• denied a real education (only torment available)
• denied life experience (except of suffering and torment)
• lack of financial independence
• lack of mobility

The real "fear" of the novel is not gothic and supernatural, but domestic and everyday

• high drama of the dance--gothic language (10, 52-53)
• watched mysteriously by the General (echoes earlier scene in the theatre when she feels that Thorpe and the General are talking about her) (10, 57)
• "imprisoned" by Thorpe in the carriage (11, 62)
• shunned by Henry (12, 66); the true terror of a woman's life
• bullied by friends (13, 72) and robbed of her autonomy (by Thorpe who makes her arrangements for her)

That last episode originates in Catherine's promise to go on a walk with Henry and Eleanor, which is the occasion of the episode in Chapter 14 discussed above. It is also one of many moments in the novel that focuses on promising, and keeping one's promises. Curious given the structure of experience that defines the novel itself and summarized by the first sentence of Volume 2: "Catherine's expectations of pleasure from her visit in Milsom-street were so very high, that disappointment was inevitable" (93). Promises, or "expectations of pleasure," are never kept.