Sympathetic Imagination in Northanger Abbey
Critics as well as the characters in the novel Northanger Abbey have noticed Catherine Morland's artlessness, and commented upon it. In this essay I have chosen to utilise the names given to Catherine's unworldliness by A. Walton Litz in Jane Austen: a Study of her Artistic Development,[1] and Christopher Gillie in A Preface to Jane Austen.[2] Litz refers to "what the eighteenth century would have called the sympathetic imagination, that faculty which promotes benevolence and generosity" (Litz, p. 67). Gillie calls this same quality "candour", and states the importance of it to Jane Austen herself, gleaning a definition of it from one of Austen's own prayers:
Incline us, oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves (cited in Gillie, p. 22).
Both critics recognise that Catherine's possession of this quality is problematic; it is desirable, but it must also be regulated if a heroine is not to be frequently duped by the harsh world. Both Gillie and Litz also acknowledge that an investigation of this enigma is at the heart of all Jane Austen's work.
I believe that the exploration of this fundamental conundrum is at the core of Northanger Abbey, and that this should be so dismisses the claims of those who believe that the lessons Catherine learns in the Gothic section of the novel are thematically most important.[3] I maintain that Northanger Abbey is not merely a curiosity, a burlesque of the Gothic style, a remnant which looks back to the parodic style of much of the juvenilia....
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...1974).
For instance, Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defence and Discovery, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952).
Peter L. De Rose and S. W. McGuire, A Concordance to the Works of Jane Austen, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1982).
Northanger Abbey, p. 56.
Northanger Abbey, p. 18, and Northanger Abbey, p. 206.
Northanger Abbey uses "artless" three times in two volumes; Emma uses "artless" four times in three volumes. [
J. F. Burrows, Computation into Criticism: a Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an experiment in Method, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987).
See Northanger Abbey, pp. 22-23.
See Northanger Abbey, p. 92, pp. 110-112. [Back] See Northanger Abbey, p. 30.
"That a young lady should be in love, and the love of the young man undeclared, is an heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must not allow" (Johnson's Collected Works, V. 168).
Southam, B.C., (ed.), Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. Landon, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul - Barres & Nobel Inc., 1968.
Jane Austen completes her story with a “Cinderella ending” of Catherine and Henry marrying. However, her novel is more than a fairytale ending. Although often wrong and misguided in their judgments, she shows the supremacy of males that permeated throughout her society. Jane Austen takes us from a portrayal of men as rude, self-centered, and opinionate to uncaring, demanding, and lying to downright ruthless, hurtful, and evil. John Thorpe’s and General Tilney’s total disregard for others feelings and their villainous ways prove Austen’s point. Whether reading Northanger Abbey for the happy ending or the moral lesson, this novel has much to offer.
New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1979. Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. Jane Austen's letters, 3rd. ed. Oxford University Press, 1995.
As I was preparing to leave high school and look for a career, I had to make an immense decision. I had to decide what field I wanted to pursue, and how to go about it. I knew I wanted to teach because it offered everything I wanted in a profession including, good benefits, decent pay, the chance to work with children, and the chance to eventually coach High School Football. No other career I found can offer all of these advantages.
In Northanger Abbey, Austen intended to reflect a contrast between a normal, healthy-natured girl and the romantic heroines of fiction thorough the use of characterization. By portraying the main character, Catherine Moorland, as a girl slightly affected with romantic notions, Jane Austen exhibits the co...
The literature output in Jane Austen’s creation is full of realism and irony. Janet Todd once asserted that "Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts, partly through readably identification with the characters and partly through rounded characters, which have a history and a memory.” (Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, 28.) Her works are deeply influenced between by late eighteenth-century Britain rationalism phenomenon and early nineteenth-century of romanticism.
Abbey are crucial for developing and maturing Catherine’s character. Bibliography Austen, Jane. [1818] 1990 Northanger Abbey, ed. by John Davie, with an introduction by Terry Castle, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press Regan, Stephen. Ed. 2001.
working on Life in Hell, a humorous comic strip consisting of people with rabbit ears.
Jane Austen Society of North America, Inc. A Brief Biography. jasna.org. 26 April. 2014.
Several times in Northanger Abbey Austen’s main character, Catherine, gets caught up in her emotions. In the second part of Austen’s story, Catherine is frequently consumed by curiosity, and it is in this same part of the novel in which the gothic mood is introduced, beginning with Catherine’s travels to Northanger Abbey. Catherine is eager to find the abbey to be like those that she reads about in novels, and Henry affirms this belief stating, “And 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 ta...
“Biography of Jane Austen.” Critical insight: Pride and Prejudice (2011): 18-31. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Nov 2013.
...e possible consequences of a swift assessment of a person with the whole elopement fiasco with Wickham and Lydia. While Wickham is evil for being ignorant to his wrongdoings, Austen wants the reader to see that Elizabeth and society is also wrong in being ignorant to Wickham’s true nature.
Becoming a teacher was not something I always knew I wanted. As I approached an age where I really started considering what I would like to do for a career I only knew that I did not want to work in an office behind a desk all day. I wanted a job that would be interactive, challenging and exciting. I also knew I wanted a job that would be important and would somehow contribute to the world in an important way. I thought being a teacher; particularly a teacher in the primary levels would fulfill those hopes and goals assuming I dedicate myself to becoming an effective teacher who has a positive influence on the lives of my students.
Essentialism will be a part of my classroom because I will be teaching science. Science is part of the basis of essentialism that became stressed with the launching of Sputnik in 1957. The philosophy of essentialism also stresses that when leaving school students are able to apply learning from school to the real world. This is what I want to do in my classroom; I want my students to understand the material being taught to them and be able to apply it to the world around them.
Fergus, Jan. “Biography.” The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen. Ed. Janet Todd.