Nick Schenken
Professor Traver
English 277
8 May 2020
Gothic Fiction in Relation to Northanger Abbey
As we have learned through this unit, Gothic fiction emerged from Romanticism, which was one of the popular styles of writing for English literature throughout the 19th century. Due to the Gothic literary movement’s origins, Gothic literature shares many of the same qualities as Romanticism such as a major focus of these texts being on emotions and imagination. Although traditional Romantic-style texts can discuss upbeat topics as well as dreary ones, it differs from Gothic fiction in the sense that Gothic fictions primary focus is on these dreary events going so far as to dive into stories which focus on horror, death, and decay.
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, which falls into the gothic fiction realm, actually differs from other well-known Gothic works such as Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Raven”, and Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, in the sense that it actually acts as a brilliant parody of gothic fiction. Throughout the novel, Austen satirizes this genre by including several scenes which build up and have a production of suspense that is very similar to more traditional Gothic texts, but instead of revealing a horrific scene or something scary, Austen disrupts this suspense at its climax by showing that there wasn’t actually anything to be worried about in the first place and that they were freaking out for nothing. A great example of this shown in the novel is seen when the primary heroine of the novel, Catherine, finally goes to unlock a cabinet that is painted as being extremely mysterious where she excepts to find something horrific and disturbing inside, but only ends up finding a bunch of laundry bills.
However, despite Northanger Abbey being a parody of its own genre, I believe that Jane Austen actually wanted to use this story as a way of biting on the criticism that was being displayed again Gothic fiction at that time and through the characters of this novel, she expertly displays the ways in which she feels Gothic fiction should not be read. Once again, using the example of Catherine, Austen portrays Catherine as somebody who speaks in volumes about her love for Gothic texts such as Ann Radcliffe’s, The Mysteries of Udolpho, but despite her love for these texts, as I believe Austen argues, she is reading these texts all wrong. Austen, in this novel is trying to point out that a reader of a Gothic novel should not state they wish they could spend their whole life submerged in this text as Catherine ever-so humorously admits, because if a Gothic novels is to properly fall within the guidelines of Gothic fiction, there should nothing desirable about human nature and life in general that is capable of being found in these texts.
In conclusion, I think that although Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen may indeed be a parody of Gothic fiction, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a diss on the Gothic genre. On the contrary, it works to offer a guideline of sorts about how Gothic fiction should be read and interpreted. If you are able to look at Austen’s novel from this perspective, I think it is safe to say that Northanger Abbey actually encourages its audience to read more works of literature within the Gothic realm and in no way discourages readers to stop reading Gothic fiction.
Brit Lit 2020 