The villain is a collection of characters because in this novel one has to stretch the meaning of the villain. When I think of a villain I think of a person who is malicious in their intent. The characters don’t really fit that description. When Austen wrote this story she implied that Catherine is a heroine, but what one reads is that Catherine is a fan of Gothic novels, and as we discussed in class on February 19, 2020, one of the characteristics of a Gothic/romance is that there is a vulnerable female, Catherine. I guess vulnerable can be interchanged with naive. Like I said earlier about multiple villains starting with the least to most, Mrs. Allen, Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe and General Tilney.
Starting with Mrs. Allen who is supposed to be Catherine’s chaperone, which means guiding her towards an advantageous marriage match. Mrs. Allen doesn’t know anyone, so introducing Catherine is hard to do. Her crime is that she allows Catherine to go for a carriage ride with Isabella, John and her brother James in a different town, where the group will dine at an inn. Even in modern times one would think that as a chaperone you would say, “no”. Or even to go with them if it’s insisted upon happening. Just poor judgment on her part.
The next contestant is Isabella, who befriends Catherine. I don’t know if Austen’s goal for writing this character is to make the reader uneasy or suspicious of her, but it works. Her crime against Catherine is the final letter that starts at the bottom of page 170 and ends at the top of 172. The uneasy/suspicious line where she claims,“I have had my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since you left Bath, but have always been prevented by some silly trifler or other.” (170) Can we agree that this is a lie and that there is no sincerity in this statement? The letter continues with how Catherine’s brother James may have misread her conduct towards her and Captain Tilney and if Catherine could put a good word in on her behalf. Not diabolical but manipulative.
Now Austen’s next two contestants are more villainous and John Thorpe, Isabella’s brother, and believed he was in the running for suitor to Catherine’s hand. His crime is double talking. Readers get a hint of this in a carriage ride where Catherine is trapped with him and how he talks about good horse flesh and how he knows a champion when he sees one, but at the same time he contradicts himself in the next sentence. Even Catherine notices this and decides she’ll tune him out, but so do the readers. This talent of his later pops up when on two different occasions at the end of the book where it’s revealed that he had General Tilney’s ear on page 193 where he sings Catherine’s praises and that he has thought of marrying Catherine himself. However, the second encounter that Thorpe has with the general is on the next page where he tells him, “irritated by Catherine’s refusal”t and that Catherine’s broke and that the family isn’t “respected in their neighborhood” (194). Which spurs General Tilney into top villain.
My final contestant which has more to do with his actions is General Tilney and why his actions are slightly more villainous than Thorpe’s lying is because he dismissed Catherine from Northanger Abbey without an escort and on a public coach, when the it’s revealed by Eleanor, “the very carriage is ordered…and no servant will be offered you.” (177) and continues, “I hope…that to your real safety that it will be of none; but to everything else it is the greatest consequence; to comfort, appearance, propriety, to your family, to the world.” (178). In simple English what General Tilney has done is commit a crime against social standards, especially of his rank. You don’t send a young woman traveling on a public coach with no escort, but double standards come into play and the brunt of the blame will fall to Catherine.
With my rankings from least to most in place, I finish with a possible villain, experience, especially with Catherine’s ability to compare real life with a Gothic novel.
Brit Lit 2020 