In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century there was a trend in
novel writing sometimes called the Gothic Mode. Authors such as Ann Radcliffe,
Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, and Mary Shelly were all a part of this movement,
writing such novels as Frankenstein, The Castle of Otranto, The Italian, The
Monk, and The Mysteries of Udolpho. In 1818, Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen,
was published, fifteen years after it was written. In this novel, Austen
satirizes the Gothic novel by frequently mentioning The Mysteries of Udolpho, a
Gothic novel, and using some of the story lines found in it. She satirizes the
Gothic hero and heroine, by having a hero who reads Gothic novels, but is
grounded in reality, and a heroine who reads Gothic novels, and learns not to
believe everything she reads. Austen also inserts parenthetical paragraphs that
serve as nothing more than satire.
Several comparisons between The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, and
Northanger Abbey can be made. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, Emily, the heroine,
has a happy childhood, much like that of Catherine’s in Northanger Abbey. Emily
falls in love with a young man named Valancourt, but is separated from him by a
villain, and imprisoned in a castle. This is a little more extreme than the
circumstances in Northanger Abbey, but Catherine is separated from Henry by his
father, who represents the villain. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, while Emily is
imprisoned in the castle Udolpho, she looks for a woman who has disappeared,
just as Catherine assumes that Mrs. Tilney has disappeared in Northanger Abbey.
In both novels, the hero has an older brother who will inherit all of the family
wealth. Also, both novels have happy endings, with the lovers living happily
ever after. “Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and everybody
smiled…To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and
eighteen is to do pretty well.” “Oh! How joyful it is to tell of happiness such
as that of Valancourt and Emily!” From these similarities, it is obvious that
Austen had read The Mysteries of Udolpho, and had some of its plot lines in mind
as she was writing Northanger Abbey.
In Northanger Abbey, Austen satirizes the Gothic hero and heroine using Henry
and Catherine. Catherine begins the novel as a girl of seventeen who has spent
the last two years “in training for a heroine.” She has “read all such works as
heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so
serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.” When
she goes to Bath, she spends most of her mornings reading The Mysteries of
Udolpho. She is captivated by the book, and discusses it with both of her
suitors. John Thorpe responds to her query as to whether he has read the book
with “I never read novels. I have something else to do.” With this criticism,
Catherine is more timid when the subject comes up with Henry. She mentions that
the countryside they are walking through reminds her of scenes from The
Mysteries of Udolpho, but quickly qualifies her remark with “But you never read
novels, I dare say…Gentlemen read better books.” Henry responds with:
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must
be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them
with great pleasure. The ‘Mysteries of Udolpho,’ when I had once begun it, I
could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days, my hair standing
on end the whole time.
Henry also makes up a tale of terrors for Catherine about what she will endure
at his house, Northanger Abbey: “Are you prepared to encounter all the horrors
that a building such as ‘what one reads about’ may produce? Have you a stout
heart—nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry?” He makes up a story of how
she will discover secret passageways filled with daggers, blood, and instruments
of torture, and eventually discover a hoard of diamonds. Catherine is enthralled
by the tale, and when she arrives at the Abbey, even discovers a chest, exactly
like the one Henry has described, in her room. Of course, the chest is full of
bedding, which Catherine is embarrassed to be caught looking at by Miss Tilney.
Catherine also finds a large cabinet with a hidden drawer that contains not
diamonds, but washing bills. As her time at Northanger goes by, Catherine begins
to suspect General Tilney of killing or hiding his wife. When Henry finds out
about her suspicions, he quickly sets the record straight:
Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have
entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age
in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians…Dearest
Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?
Catherine is mortified and resolves to control her imagination. The next time
she is scared by a noise in the hallway, “resolving not to again be overcome by
trivial appearances of alarm, or misled by a raised imagination, she stepped
quietly forward, and opened the door.” On the other side of the door was nothing
more than Miss Tilney. Catherine travels home, and shows herself once again to
be a reformed woman, by being unafraid of traveling so far by herself, and
arriving home, as her mother said to her “with your wits about you.” Catherine
and Henry are a satirical representation of the Gothic hero and heroine, because
they triumph over their imaginations, and base their lives in the real world,
where “murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison
nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.”
The final way that Austen satirizes the Gothic novel is using parenthetical
paragraphs. The first of these occurs early in Northanger Abbey, when we learn
that Catherine reads novels.
Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so
common with novel-writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very
performance to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining with
their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works…Let us
leave it to the reviewers to…talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which
the press now groans. Let us not desert one another: we are an injured body.
Of course, this is an extremely ironic paragraph, since even though Catherine
reads novels, Northanger Abbey is all how she grows out of believing everything
she reads. Most of Austen’s other parenthetical paragraphs are just a satire on
the plots of the Gothic novel. She says things that have nothing to do with the
story she is telling, such as in reference to Henry’s brother: “He cannot be the
instigator of the three villains in horsemen’s greatcoats by whom she will
hereafter be forced into a travelling chaise-and-four, which will drive off with
incredible speed.” Of course, no such thing ever happens to Catherine. Austen is
just completely satirizing the Gothic novel, in which such things happen all the
time. Austen also inserts paragraphs about the typical heroine, such as when
Catherine returns home:
A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native village, in all
the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a
long train of noble relations in their several phaetons, and three waiting-maids
in a travelling chaise-and-four behind her, is an event on which the pen of the
contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and
the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But my affair is
widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace…A
heroine in a hack-post-chaise is such a blow upon sentiment as no attempt at
grandeur or pathos can withstand.
With these and other paragraphs, Austen drives home her satirical points about
Gothic novels.
In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen satirizes the Gothic novel in a number of ways.
She frequently mentions the Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho and uses some
of the story lines found in it. She satirizes the Gothic hero and heroine by
having a hero who is not carried away by Gothic novels, and a heroine who is
“taken from everyday life and described realistically.” She also inserts
parenthetical, satirical paragraphs to further her points. All of these
techniques combine to form a satirical representation of the Gothic Mode.
Bibliography
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. London: Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1948.
Bradbrook, Frank W. Jane Austen and Her Predecessors. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1966.
Duckworth, Alistair M. The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen’s
Novels. London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.
Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. London: Routledge, 1995.
Lascelles, Mary. Jane Austen and Her Art. London: Oxford University Press, 1939.
Miles, Robert. Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1995.
McKillop, Alan D. “Critical Realism in Northanger Abbey.” Jane Austen: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Ian Watt. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
1963.
Punter, David. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765
to
the Present Day. Vol. 1. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1996.
Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho. Vol. 1. London: J. M. Dent and Sons
Ltd., 1931.
Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho. Vol. 2. London: J. M. Dent and Sons
Ltd., 1931.
Sadleir, Michael. The Northanger Novels: A Footnote to Jane Austen. London:
Oxford University Press, 1927.
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