Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey: Parodying The Gothic Genre

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Northanger Abbey: Parodying the Gothic Genre

Jane Austen is well known for her novels about middle and upper social classes, and romances. Northanger Abbey (1818), however, is the odd one out because of the implementation of certain gothic elements, not seen in Austen’s other literary works. In Volume 2 of Northanger Abbey, Austen satirizes gothic novels by either exaggerating or contradicting on what the genre is known for (eeriness, mystery and supernatural). In this paper will be analysed how these gothic elements are being employed and parodied in Northanger Abbey. Volume 1 of the novel depicts how the main protagonist of the story, Catherine, is being mentally influenced by her reading of gothic novels and especially by The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe. Because of that, Catherine lives in her own little world where everything is suspicious and is just like the gothic novels she has read. Catherine immediately is quite anxious as soon as she arrives at Northanger Abbey in …show more content…
For instance, in the novel Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, a foul looking creature is one of the main characters and is being described as a hideous and intimidating monster that is capable of doing horrendous things. General Tilney, the owner of Northanger Abbey, In Northanger Abbey, is being portrayed by Catherine as a monster, just like it is being described in Frankenstein. She thinks that General Tilney is horrible person, also capable of doing horrible things to others. Catherine even thinks the General killed his own wife and hid her somewhere in the Abbey, although he did not do that, since his wife died of an illness. Even after further inspection of Catherine in the Abbey, she finds nothing unusual. Once again, all these things are just figments of Catherine’s imagination and satirizes the gothic
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