Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey

            I was startled by how mean Northanger Abbey was. The humor of the book comes at the expense of the characters, even the ones we like, as though Austen’s usual incisive wit turned against everyone’s weaknesses, instead of just against the greedy and cruel and deserving. Almost everyone is treated the way Mr. Collins is treated in Pride and Prejudice, without any of the justifiable cause. Our heroine is dense and easily deluded, her friends petty and vicious. The kindly lady who takes Catherine to Bath is so stupid that she is almost unbearable to read, making the same vacuous statements over and over, verbatim. These aren’t the clever observations and revelations of Austen’s other works, but strangely this work does remind me quite a lot of exactly what I hated about J.K. Rowling’s post-Harry Potter books. It’s one thing when we can laugh gently with the author at the foibles of the characters, seeing our own flaws in them, but when the author herself seems to hate them, I’m not even sure what we’re doing all this for. Unless the character is a villain, who wants to read about characters that even the author hates? And most authors are careful to give us a little humanizing insight into even the purest villains.

            In any case, I’m here for structure and the house in gothic novels! Northanger Abbey itself played a terrific role as the ancient gothic setting that our heroine has been hoping to see, something out of the constantly mocked romances she reads. Catherine is so caught up in the world of her fictional gothics that she sees the abbey itself through that lens, to the point where she is horrified to discover that General Tinley, who owns the place, has knocked down the ruined section in order to build perfectly normal offices. She scares herself stiff her first night there by opening a trunk and a cabinet that would, in a proper gothic, contain horrors of narrative importance. And she actually starts to consider whether the General has murdered or locked up his wife, as someone in a real gothic would do, until she is brought back to earth by her love interest, Henry, who fortunately has read all of the same books she has—but is not taken to task for that, as Catherine is.

            Northanger Abbey itself functions as the goal that Catherine desires, embodying both a good friend in Eleanor and a kind and intelligent beau in Tilney. A previously planned trip to another deliciously gothic ruin gets canceled when she and the Thorne siblings are only halfway there, as they suddenly realize it will be dark when they arrive. This abortive trip marks the beginning of Catherine’s awareness of her friends’ selfishness and unkindness. The failed trip to this scenic spot feels like a testing of the waters, an experiment in making social connections, and a learning experience because of its failure.

            Structurally, the Abbey is a pivot in Catherine’s narrative. She travels there as a wide-eyed gothic fangirl, but leaves quite a lot more grown up, aware of her feelings for Tilney and her discomfort around the overbearing and controlling General, as well as her true connection and friendship with Eleanor. Knowing and trusting her own emotions is just part of Catherine’s transition toward adulthood, along with her more realistic and less fantastic way of interacting with the world. The Catherine who gets pushed out early one morning and sent on a journey of fifty miles with no reason given definitely copes better than the Catherine would have who snooped around hoping for evidence of horrible but thrilling deeds. Staying at Northanger Abbey changed Catherine.

            How does a building, however stately and imposing, change a character’s personality so much? Part of the effect, I would argue, comes from the simple solidity of the place. A building is an indisputable fact, property to be managed, wealth and status made visible and tangible. Catherine’s own home is a crowded one, full of family, ten children running all over the place. As part of that busy and crowded family home, Catherine is not given to self-reflection or critical thinking or even uninterrupted thought, and certainly has nothing to call her own. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine has the space and time for quiet conversation and the company of adult friends who challenge her assumptions and expand her horizons. Tinley’s house, though smaller and less grand, affects Catherine much the same way, as she walks around it trying very hard not to imagine herself living there, married to Tinley. Tinley’s house embodies that future.

            Losing Northanger Abbey so abruptly and in such a rude and harsh way throws Catherine completely off course, to the point where she nearly walks out the door without the money to pay for her trip home. The journey between her temporary home back to her original home is an intolerable one because Catherine has grown beyond her old life and can no longer be comfortable in her childhood home, with her family. Her mother tries to jolly her out of legitimately distressing emotions as though Catherine has broken a favorite toy. This home no longer fits, or rather Catherine no longer fits in this home.

            Property makes all the difference. Austen’s novels are all about property and the effects it has on every detail of the characters’ daily lives. It’s wonderful that even in this ironic mockery of the gothic, Austen has featured a house that works both as the absurd focus of a devoted fan’s imagination, and as the solid bastion of wealth and security that drives the General to seek out Catherine as a well-heeled heiress to marry his son, and then throw Catherine out as a poor gold digger, never mind that both of the stories he believes about her are just as far-fetched as Catherine’s gothic imaginings about Northanger Abbey.