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The Growth of a Heroine's Mind: The Development of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey
Jesse F. Helmer
Kate Lawson
English 430A
3 December 2002
Northanger Abbey foregrounds the question of what it means to be a heroine, in literature and in life. It is not a sentimental or gothic novel, but a parody of both, an entirely different kind of novel. Its heroine, similarly, is not the typical heroine of sentimental or gothic novels, but an entirely different kind of heroine. The most important difference between Catherine and the typical heroine with whom she is juxtaposed is that she changes over the course of the novel. At the outset of the novel, the narrator diligently illustrates that Catherine has none of the characteristics of the typical heroine. Says the narrator, "No one who had seen her in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine"(39). This apparently simple statement is in fact quite profound. The narrator is not judging Catherine's heroic potential, but the ability of characters to see heroic potential. Necessarily, one cannot see heroic potential without knowing the characteristics of a heroine. In the world of Northanger Abbey, characters learn the characteristics of a heroine from examples in novels. Thus, the characters to whom the narrator refers assess Catherine's heroic potential by comparing her to the heroines of novels. As readers, however, we have a different perspective on Catherine's heroic potential. From our position outside the novel, we are able to judge Catherine's heroic potential in ways that the characters cannot. We are able to read and reread Northanger Abbey, and, in the process of reading and rereading, we can see how Catherine misreads the events and people of her life. She misreads Thorpe's interest in her and Isabella's relationship with Frederick Tilney. She further mistakes Northanger Abbey for a castle of Gothic proportions and intrigue, a locked chest and a black cabinet for strongholds of mysterious things, and the natural death of Mrs. Tilney for a calculated murder. Catherine learns from these misreadings and mistakes, however, and illustrates the development of her understanding when she perceives Isabella's true character. Granted, she does not see General Tilney's true character, but her perception of Isabella's character shows us that she has grown, and suggests that she will continue to grow. This growth is the most important difference between Catherine and the typical heroine to whom she is juxtaposed throughout the novel. Catherine, unlike these other heroines, is more a heroine at the end of the novel than she is at the beginning.
Northanger Abbey opens with a lengthy narration about Catherine's potential as a Gothic heroine. This narration leaves little doubt that Catherine is not a Gothic heroine before she goes to Bath. The narrator provides three general differences between Catherine and the Gothic heroine: "Her situation in life, the character of her mother and father, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her" (39). Her father is a respectable clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings" (39), and her mother is good-tempered, sensible, and healthy. They are quite unremarkable, and, in this respect, Catherine is like her parents. She has a "thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features" (39). Her mind is equally unremarkable: "She could never learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive and occasionally stupid" (40). The narrator has diligently illustrated that Catherine is an entirely normal ten-year-old, without any natural heroic inclinations, but this is not the end of the narrator's commentary on Catherine's heroic potential. At fifteen, we learn that Catherine's person and disposition have changed. Her father and mother even remark on "her personal improvement" (41). And from fifteen to seventeen, we learn that Catherine is in training to be a heroine. Since she has "by nature nothing heroic about her" (41), she must become a heroine through study. Catherine's training regimen consists of reading poetry, particularly that of Pope, Gray, Thompson, and Shakespeare, from which typical heroines quote quite frequently. This description of Catherine's training regimen concludes the lengthy narration about her heroic potential. This narration clearly satirizes the Gothic heroine of popular novels and places Catherine in opposition thereto, but it also highlights how Catherine grows from a potential heroine into an actual heroine: she does so by reading; not by reading poetry, but by reading novels, situations, and people. Her growth as a heroine is her growth as a reader.
In her introduction Claire Grogan correctly assesses the importance of reading within the world of the novel: "Northanger Abbey is a text about reading, reading novels, reading people and reading situations" (23). Indeed, characters in the novel fail to see Catherine's heroic potential precisely because they read Gothic novels and Catherine is not a Gothic heroine. Grogan correctly assesses the reading ability of each main character. Isabella Thorpe is a "poor inattentive reader" (21); John Thorpe is a "boorish inattentive reader"(21); and Henry and Eleanor Tilney are "competent, attentive readers" (22). The most important thing about these characters is not their reading ability, but their reading material. Each of them reads Gothic novels, however competently; therefore, like Catherine herself, they cannot see her heroic potential.
The narrator provides us with some information about how well each of these four characters read, but we learn much more about how Catherine reads and misreads. Her misreadings, in Bath and at Northanger, are numerous and humourous. Five of these misreadings deserve special attention. In Bath, she misreads Thorpe's interest in her. She does not understand that he is flirting when he talks about his horse's top-speed and his fabulous gig, and she does not see Thorpe's rather sad attempt to propose marriage for what it is. Indeed, she is very upset to learn that Thorpe has misconstrued her responses to his bumbling proposal: "I am excessively concerned that he should have any regard for me Ð but indeed it has been quite unintentional on my side, I never had the smallest idea of it" (150). Granted, Thorpe's attempted proposal is horrendously awkward, but Catherine misreads it nonetheless. Her second misreading also occurs in Bath, when she misreads Isabella's relationship with Frederick Tilney. The narrator reports:
But when Catherine saw her in public, admitting Captain Tilney's attentions as readily as they were offered, and allowing him almost an equal share with James in her notice and smiles, the alteration became too positive to be passed over. What could be meant by such unsteady conduct, what her friend could be at, was beyond her comprehension. (153-4)
Catherine has ample evidence to correctly conclude that Isabella is quite interested in Captain Tilney, but she does not; rather, she decides to discuss the matter with Henry. This discussion, however, merely reinforces our understanding of her limited powers of reason. Henry says, "To be guided by second hand conjecture is pitiful. The premises are before you" (156). Catherine considers the matter for a few moments, then replies, "you may be able to guess at your brother's intentions from all this; but I am sure that I cannot" (156). Just as she is unable to see Thorpe's interest in her for what it is, she cannot see Isabella's interest in Frederick for what it is.
Catherine fares no better at Northanger. In the carriage on the way to Northanger, she mistakes the abbey for an Italian castle directly taken from a Radcliffean novel. She says in reply to Henry, "To be sure I have. Is it not a fine old place, just like what one reads about?" (160). Henry takes this opportunity to exploit Catherine's deficient reading ability. He conjures up a series of false Gothic descriptions of Northanger. Catherine falls for this imaginary abbey, hook, line and sinker. When she actually arrives at Northanger, she finds that it is entirely different than the abbey that she had expected. The difference is summed up in the windows, which Catherine had heard the General "talk of his preserving them in their Gothic form with reverential care" (164). The windows, to no one's surprise except Catherine's, turn out to be "yet less what her fancy had portrayed" (164). The narrator succinctly sums up the entire experience:
To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest diversions, and the heaviest stone-work, for painted glass, dirt, and cobwebs, the difference was very distressing. (165)
This description of Catherine's reaction to the difference between what she sees and what she expected to see is very important. Not only does it juxtapose the expected and the actual, but it shows that she reacts to the difference emotionally, rather than stoically. Since her experience of abbey's is limited to those found in novels, Northanger is quite shocking in its plainness. Catherine's misreadings at Northanger, however, have only just begun. She proceeds to misread the "large high chest" in her room (166-67), and the "large, high black cabinet" (170), which contains not a secret manuscript but "a washing-bill" (173). These successive misreadings are quite amusing, and would destroy Catherine's credibility in the eyes of the reader, if she did not seem to improve after each one. After Catherine mistakes the washing-bill for a manuscript, the narrator reports her thoughts:
She felt humbled to the dust. Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it catching her as she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment against her. Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her fancies. (173)
Readers remain in consonance with Catherine because they identify with her mistakes; though readers have likely not made this many mistakes of this kind and degree, they have all made mistakes. Catherine's realization of "the absurdity of her fancies" strikes a chord within readers. This consonance, however, is strained to the breaking point by Catherine's most grievous misreading Ð that the General killed his wife. The General's prevention of Catherine's exploration of Mrs. Tilney's room triggers Catherine's overactive imagination once again. With her fancy working overtime, she then misreads the General pacing at night: "It was the air and attitude of a Montoni!" (185), and resolves to search Mrs. Tilney's room for
Éproofs of the General's cruelty, which however they might yet have escaped discovery, she felt confident of somewhere drawing forth, in the shape of some fragmented journal, continued to the last gasp. (190)
Of course, the General did not murder his wife. This time, Catherine is shocked from her fancy by Henry, who has conveniently returned early from Woodston. Inferring her grievous misreading, Henry rebukes her,
What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you Ð (194)
Catherine has resolved to keep her fancy in check, has seemed to have learned of her own accord, but ultimately failed. Moreover, the intervention of Henry suggests that the narrator was correct when she wrote about Catherine, "She never could learn anything before she was taught" (40). At this point, the reader is in dissonance with Catherine: she has simply failed to reason correctly too many times.
This dissonance between the reader and Catherine, however, is short-lived. Henry's rebuke prompts Catherine to reflect on her flights of fancy. She realizes that "it had all been all a voluntary, self-created delusion" and sees that the problem "might be traced to the influence of that sort of reading which she had there indulged" (196). This is a significant insight for Catherine, more profound and accurate than any of her previous epiphanies. Reluctantly, the reader is tempted to hope that Catherine will judge a situation correctly. Fortunately, James' letter describing the end of his relationship with Isabella provides Catherine with yet another opportunity to prove her deductive powers. The letter is appropriately vague: "I shall not enter into particulars, they would only pain you more. You will soon hear enough from another quarter to know where lies the blame" (198). During her discussion of the letter's contents with Henry and Eleanor, Catherine states, "I never was so deceived in anyone's character in my life before" (202). She is now prepared to receive the account from another quarter, namely, Isabella's letter, which arrives one chapter later. After reading the rather long letter, Catherine finally sees Isabella's true character. The narrator reports her reaction to the letter:
Such a strain of hollow artifice could not impose even upon Catherine. Its inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehood, struck her from the very first. She was ashamed of Isabella, and ashamed of ever having loved her. (211)
Catherine's first correct reading is not of a person or event, but of a letter. She is, therefore, becoming a better reader. Marvin Mudrick contends that this "demands too abrupt a transition from Catherine the matter-of-fact ingŽnue to Catherine the self-appointed Gothic heroine" (Mudrick, 57). In Mudrick's view, Catherine is "incapable of discovery implications: she is credulous only because she believes exactly what people say, not because she draws false or sentimental inferences from what they do" (57). He is wrong on both counts. The transition is not abrupt, though it may appear to be during the first reading. Catherine has come very close to correctly reading a person, situation, or text a number of times. Her eventual success is not a surprise but a relief for the reader. Moreover, Catherine's successful reading of Isabella's letter demonstrates that she is capable of discovering implications. Mudrick's false conclusions about Catherine follow from his belief that Austen, rather than reproducing Gothic types, "presents their anti-types in the actual world, and organizes these into a domestic narrative that parallels or intersects, and at all points tends to invalidate, the Gothic narrative to which it diligently corresponds" (39). This idea of anti-types holds for most characters, but not for Catherine. As John Hardy notes, Mudrick's analysis is "arguably too simple a formulation" (Hardy, 12). It seems that Mudrick, perhaps driven by a desire to fit every character into the same box, has failed to see that Catherine is different from other characters.
Catherine is a realistic heroine unlike the types presented in Radcliffean novels. She is not a paragon of virtue, but a normal person, capable of mistakes and able to learn from them. She is not born a heroine, but "born to be an heroine" (39). At the beginning of the novel, the narrator illustrates plainly that Catherine is not a typical Gothic heroine. From this rather unremarkable beginning Catherine struggles to accurately read people, situations, and events, and finally succeeds. Thus, over the course of the novel, she becomes a heroine. Like the people of England, she is not "spotless as an angel" nor does she have the "disposition of a fiend" (196). Her heart and habits, rather, are a "general mixture of good an bad" (196). Her growth into a new kind of heroine is completed by her successful reading of Isabella's letter, but none of the characters in the novel can see it, for they are all too caught up in the Gothic to see the realistic. Only the careful, attentive reader can see Catherine become an everyday heroine.