Northanger Abbey is often off-handedly called "Austen's satire on the gothic." That makes it sound so simple!
The more I read this novel, the more I find so many additional target of satire from the relatively small detail of "being denied" when calling upon someone to the larger issues of coercion among people who claim to have affection for one another.
Making fun of gothic conventions and gothic definitions of heroes and heroines is the obvious part of this novel. It is also the funny part--we laugh when Catherine finds a long lost manuscript that turns out to be a laundry list. But I don't find myself laughing when John and Isabella Thorpe physically hold her to prevent her from undoing John's rude canceling of her plans with the Tilney's. Surely this is plain cruelty.
Northanger Abbey, I think, challenges readers to figure out the distinctions between real and imaginary dangers.
No comments:
Post a Comment