Do Catherine Morland, the protagonist of NORTHANGER ABBEY, and Marianne , one of the Dashwood sisters in SENSE AND SENSIBILITYshare any trait of their personality? What they certainly share is their young age, they are both 17. But is there more?
No, don't worry, I'm not going to review those Austen inspired novels mixing Jane's world with vampires and monsters. I've never read one of those . I was just ordering the notes and slides I used these days in some of my lessons, thought that I could share them because some of you might be interested and decided to post about them.
I noticed that several of the blogs I regularly visit and read are involved in the so-called R.I.V. Challenge, that is Readers Imbibing Peril.
They are reading and blog posting about Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Horror Books. I’m not taking part in the Challenge but I’m full immersed in reading and teaching about the roots of all those modern genres. Today’s ghost and horror novels, as well as mystery stories or thrillers, which are so keenly read all over the world, come from the 18th century GOTHIC NOVEL. My lessons to my eldest students are focused on this genre these days.
The adjective Gothic was first applied to architecture long before it connoted literature. HORACE WALPOLE (1717 – 1797) was the first to link the two: his obsession with his beloved miniature castle at Strawberry Hill inspired him for THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO (1764) and the book subtitle, A GOTHIC TALE. This was the first time the term was used in a literary context. Would you be scared by such melodramatic, simpering rather naive prose?
(from H. Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, ch. 1, pp.1-2)
Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda. Conrad, the son, was three years younger, a homely youth, sickly, and of no promising disposition; yet he was the darling of his father, who never showed any symptoms of affection to Matilda. Manfred had contracted a marriage for his son with the Marquis of Vicenza’s daughter, Isabella; and she had already been delivered by her guardians into the hands of Manfred, that he might celebrate the wedding as soon as Conrad’s infirm state of health would permit. Manfred’s impatience for this ceremonial was remarked by his family and neighbours. The former, indeed, apprehending the severity of their Prince’s disposition, did not dare to utter their surmises on this precipitation. Hippolita, his wife, an amiable lady, did sometimes venture to represent the danger of marrying their only son so early, considering his great youth, and greater infirmities; but she never received any other answer than reflections on her own sterility, who had given him but one heir. His tenants and subjects were less cautious in their discourses. They attributed this hasty wedding to the Prince’s dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy, which was said to have pronounced that the castle and lordship of Otranto “should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.” It was difficult to make any sense of this prophecy; and still less easy to conceive what it had to do with the marriage in question. Yet these mysteries, or contradictions, did not make the populace adhere the less to their opinion.Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company was assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for beginning the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing. Manfred, impatient of the least delay, and who had not observed his son retire, despatched one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant, who had not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment, came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the month. He said nothing, but pointed to the court. The company were struck with terror and amazement. The Princess Hippolita, without knowing what was the matter, but anxious for her son, swooned away. Manfred, less apprehensive than enraged at the procrastination of the nuptials, and at the folly of his domestic, asked imperiously what was the matter? The fellow made no answer, but continued pointing towards the courtyard; and at last, after repeated questions put to him, cried out, “Oh! the helmet! the helmet!” In the meantime, some of the company had run into the court, from whence was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise. Manfred, who began to be alarmed at not seeing his son, went himself to get information of what occasioned this strange confusion. Matilda remained endeavouring to assist her mother, and Isabella stayed for the same purpose, and to avoid showing any impatience for the bridegroom, for whom, in truth, she had conceived little affection. The first thing that struck Manfred’s eyes was a group of his servants endeavouring to raise something that appeared to him a mountain of sable plumes. He gazed without believing his sight. “What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully; “where is my son?” A volley of voices replied, “Oh! my Lord! the Prince! the Prince! the helmet! the helmet!” Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father’s eyes!— he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers. The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous phenomenon before him, took away the Prince’s speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than even grief could occasion. He fixed his eyes on what he wished in vain to believe a vision; and seemed less attentive to his loss, than buried in meditation on the stupendous object that had occasioned it. He touched, he examined the fatal casque; nor could even the bleeding mangled remains of the young Prince divert the eyes of Manfred from the portent before him. All who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as much surprised at their Prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck themselves at the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the disfigured corpse into the hall, without receiving the least direction from Manfred. As little was he attentive to the ladies who remained in the chapel”.
Gothic novels were extremely popular at the end of the 18th century and that taste or fashion involved all social classes. Most of those novels followed the same pattern with few alterations: great importance given to terror and horror – as two different ingredients, since the first was characterised by obscurity and uncertainty and the latter by evil and atrocity; ancient settings like isolated castles, dungeons, secret rooms, mysterious abbeys or convents; supernatural beings like vampires, ghosts, witches, monsters; a triad of main characters including an oversensitive persecuted heroine, a terrifying/ satanic male villain and a sensitive honourable hero. After Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” , very popular Gothic tales were Ann Radcliffe’s “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) and “The Monk” by Matthew Lewis (1796) .
In the same years Miss Jane Austen dreamt of “living on her pen”, writing her first novels “of manners”. Between 1795-96 she had finished Elinore and Marianne, later on published as Sense and Sensibility, as well as First impressions then published as Pride and Prejudice. Was she interested in Gothic novels or did she attempt to write one? Since irony and satire were her favourite literary “weapons”, she preferred writing a parody of such sentimental fashionable genre. In 1798 she wrote Northanger Abbey, never published during her life for reasons left unknown, that is in fact an open mocking of the genre.
Young Catherine Morland’s story develops some of Jane Austen’s favourite themes, the initiation of a young woman into the complexities of adult social life and the danger of imagnation uncontrolled by reason and common sense. Catherine’s mistake is that she imposes the melodramatic values of the gothic novels she reads (i.e. “The mysteries of Udolpho” by A. Radcliffe) on the reality around her, making the boundaries between the real and the imaginary quite uncertain. Here’s are two examples - from ITV 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey - of how Catherine is influenced by her reading gothic tales, which will create her "some troubles" once she is invited at Northanger Abbey (clip 1 0:00 /1:36; clip 2 0:00/2:52) by the Tilneys.
Northanger Abbey was one of the first novels Jane Austen wrote but it was only published in 1817, after her death, by her brother Henry . Though still amusing today, would have been amusing in a rather different way to its first readers, because it was written as a deliberate parody of the very popular “horrid” novels of the period – what we now call “thrillers” – some of which Isabella Thorpe has listed in her pocket – book and recommends to Catherine Morland: The Italian,The Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, The Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, Horrid Mysteries. Under Isabella’s guidance, Catherine starts by reading The Mysteries of Udolpho, and later on she begins to imagine that General Tilney is just such a wife- murderer as the sinister Signor Montoni in that story. The juxtaposition of fiction to reality will provoke her distorted vision of people and facts, her incapacity to judge them properly, her blunders and several misunderstandings.
Jane Austen’s portrayal of Catherine is humorous and ironic, Catherine is realistically portrayed as deficient in experience and perception, unlike the heroines of Gothic and romance novels. All the heroines of this kind of novel are of high birth, angelic beauty, extreme virtue and sensibility, and although usually orphaned and invariably growing up in poverty on some lonely foreign mountainside, nevertheless are so naturally gifted as to possess all the female accomplishments without ever having any formal tuition.
Catherine, instead, was plain, had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without much colour, dark lank hair and strong features; she was noisy and wild, hates confinement and cleanliness, enjoys boys’ pastimes...
Catherine fails to recognize the obvious developing relationship between her brother James and her friend Isabella; she fails to recognize Isabella's true nature until long after it has hurt her brother; she accidentally leads John Thorpe into thinking she loves him; and most significantly, she embarrasses herself in front of Henry Tilney when he finds out she suspects his father of murder. While Catherine is an avid reader of novels, she is inexperienced at reading people, and this is what causes many of the problems she encounters. By the end of the novel, she has become a much better judge of character, having learned from her mistakes with Isabella and General Tilney. She is also, perhaps, a bit more cynical about people, as Henry is. Ultimately, it is her integrity and caring nature that win Henry's heart and bring her happiness.
Would you have ever said that she had an ancient, noble, world-wide famous ancestor from Spain? Do you remember him? He too was an avid reader of tales and he too confused reality and the images in his mind, those heroic images taken from the wonderful romances he had read in great quantitities. YES!
Don Quixote de la Mancha ! Don Quixote ( 1605 ) is a parody of the romances of Cervantes's time. Don Quixote rides out like any other knight-errant, searching for the same principles and goals and engaging in similar battles. During these battles, he invokes chivalric ideals, regardless of how ridiculous his adventures may be. On another level, however, the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the novel's First Part attempt to describe a code of honour that could serve as an example for a Spain that was confused by war and by its own technological and social successes. Cervantes applies this code of values to a world in which such values are out of date.
Don Quixote is a gaunt, middle-aged gentleman who, having gone mad from reading too many books about chivalrous knights, determines to set off on a great adventure to win honor and glory in the name of his invented ladylove, Dulcinea. Don Quixote longs for a sense of purpose and beauty—two things he believes the world lacks—and hopes to bring order to a tumultuous world by reinstating the chivalric code of the knights-errant. Initially, Don Quixote's good intentions do only harm to those he meets.
Well, Catherine has also got a fascinating French lady among her descendants. Any idea? Not a clue? Ok. I’ll help you: Emma, better known as MADAME BOVARY (1857).
Like Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey parodies Gothic heroines, in Emma Bovary Flaubert uses irony to criticize romanticism and to investigate the relation of beauty to corruption and of fate to free will. Emma embarks directly down a path to moral and financial ruin over the course of the novel. She is very beautiful, as we can tell by the way several men fall in love with her, but she is morally corrupt and unable to accept and appreciate the realities of her life. Since her girlhood in a convent, she has read romantic novels that feed her discontent with her ordinary life. She dreams of the purest, most impossible forms of love and wealth, ignoring whatever beauty is present in the world around her. Flaubert once said, “Madame Bovary is me,” and many scholars believe that he was referring to a weakness he shared with his character for romance, sentimental flights of fancy, and melancholy. Flaubert, however, approaches romanticism with self-conscious irony, pointing out its flaws even as he is tempted by it. Emma, on the other hand, never recognizes that her desires are unreasonable. She rails emotionally against the society that, from her perspective, makes them impossible for her to achieve. She starts mixing fiction to reality and to wish her life to be just as it is in the novels she loves reading …She doesn’t go crazy like don Quixote, but, even worse, she dies.
So among the three characters Catherine’s fate is the luckiest and happiest
. Do you remember what happens to her at the end of Northanger Abbey?
What could the end of my post be? A suggestion not to read too much because it might become dangerous? Not at all. It's an invitation to read more and more, enjoy reading and meet amusing, moving or fascinating characters like THESE.
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Young Conrad’s birthday was fixed for his espousals. The company was assembled in the chapel of the Castle, and everything ready for beginning the divine office, when Conrad himself was missing. Manfred, impatient of the least delay, and who had not observed his son retire, despatched one of his attendants to summon the young Prince. The servant, who had not stayed long enough to have crossed the court to Conrad’s apartment, came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the month. He said nothing, but pointed to the court.
Young Catherine Morland’s story develops some of Jane Austen’s favourite themes, the initiation of a young woman into the complexities of adult social life and the danger of imagnation uncontrolled by reason and common sense. Catherine’s mistake is that she imposes the melodramatic values of the gothic novels she reads (i.e. “The mysteries of Udolpho” by A. Radcliffe) on the reality around her, making the boundaries between the real and the imaginary quite uncertain.
Catherine Morland
Well, Catherine has also got a fascinating French lady among her descendants. Any idea? Not a clue? Ok. I’ll help you: Emma, better known as MADAME BOVARY (1857).