Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of the English Language and Literature NORTHANGER ABBEY AS A PARODY OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL Final thesis Written by : Mgr. Marcela Jurtíková Supervisor: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Brno 2006 DECLARATION: I declare that I have compiledthis final thesis bymyself andthat I usedonlythe sources listedinthe bibliography. I wouldlike toexpress mysincere gratitude toMiss Lucie Podroužková for her valuable guidance. CONTENTS Introduction ……………………………………………………………. 4 1 English novel ……………………………………………………………… 6 1.1Sentimentalnovel……………………………………………………. 7 1.2Gothicnovel…………………………………………………………. 8 1.3JaneAustenasanauthoroftheEnglishnovel.……………………… 11 2 Northanger Abbey …………………………………………………………. 15 2.1 Elements of the Gothic novel, their representation and parody in Northanger Abbey ………………………………………………….. 20 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 29 Resumé …………………………………………………………………. 31 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………. 33 Introduction Jane Austen (1775–1817),whois this workchieflyabout,is considered one of the mostfamousEnglishnovelists.SheissometimescomparedwithShakespeare. She was the daughter of a clergyman and received an education superior to that generally given to girls of her time. She spent the first twentyfive years of her life at Steventon, her father’s Hampshire vicarage, where she wrote her first novels Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensiblity, and Northanger Abbey. Onfather’s retirement in1801,the family moved to Bath for several years, then to Southampton, and lastly to Chawton, whichwasJane’shomefortherestofherlife.(www.bartleby.com) Of her sixnovels,four, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma, were published anonymously, onlyas ‘a lady’, during her life-time, and the others, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion ,appeareda few months after her death,when thenameof theauthorwasdivulged . ( http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi) Jane Austen’s novels are comedies of manners. Despite of living in a stormy period,she does not mentionanypolitical events inher literature.She describes the most natural and everyday incidents in the life of the middle and upper classes. Most of her worksarefocusedonthedelicate business,whichistofinda richfiancéandmarrywell. Although Jane Austen wrote her novels at the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, she is very popular up to now, especially for her vividnarration,livelydescriptionof characters, her superbsense of irony,andher moral firmness.She ridicules the silly,theaffected,andthe stupid, andshe is consideredamaster ofadialogue.(www.bartleby.com) Jane Austen’s art grew out of the traditions of sentimental novels and she often alludes to its conventions. Northanger Abbey , one of her first novels, contains some features of sentimentalism but inparticular it is a parodyof the Gothic novel,whichwas verypopular at Austen’s time.The author employs its elements andtries tosatirize them. She ridicules the people’s desire for something mysterious and supernatural. People are overwhelmedbythisdesireandit leadsthemtothefearofabsolutelycommonsituation. The aim of this work is to analyse the elements of the Gothic novel in Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It is connected with the main characters of the novel, who are influencedbyreadingthe very popular genre.This workis focusedon different features of 4 the Gothic novel, including its language, their representation in Northanger Abbey, and findinghowtheyaresatirizedbythe author. The workconsists of twomainchapters.First one deals withthe Englishnovel in general,and withits twokinds – Sentimental novel and Gothic novel. Inthe first chapter Jane Austen is described as anauthor of the Englishnovel.The secondchapter deals with Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey. Firstlythere is depictedits content,and thenthe work is focused on the elements of the Gothic novel, how they are demonstrated and parodiedin Northanger Abbey. 5 1 English novel A word ‘novel’ is from French nouvelle , which means ‘new’. It is extended fictional narrative inprose.It became one of the major literarygenre inthe eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies.(http://en.wikipedia.org) As the first flowering of the English novel was seen in Romantic period it is appropriate towritesomethingaboutit. Romanticism originated in the late eighteenth century in Western Europe. It is a movement inart andliterature inthe eighteenth andnineteenthcenturies inrevolt against the Neoclassicism of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Neoclassicism sought to revive the artistic ideals of classical Greece andRome.While Neoclassicism was characterizedbyemotional restraint, order,logic,elegance of diction,an emphasis of form over content, clarity, dignity, and decorum, the main points of Romanticism are imagination, emotion,andfreedom. Appeals of Neoclassicism were tothe intellect rather thantothe emotions,andit prized wit over imagination.As for Romanticism,particular characteristics of the literature includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from rules; solitary life rather than life in society; the beliefs that imagination is superior toreasonanddevotiontobeauty; love of andworship of nature; andfascinationwiththe past,especiallythe myths andmysticism of the middle ages.It stressed strong emotion, the individual imagination, overturning of previous social conventions, and the importance of ‘nature’. It is also noted for its elevation of the achievements of what is perceived as heroic individuals and artists. It followed the Enlightment period and was inspired by a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms from the previous period.(www.uh.edu/engines) The novel in the nineteenth century described the life on the British Isles, worseningsocial problems,anddeepeningclassconflicts. It is alsoimportant torecognize the role that the contemporaryreader playedinthe history of the English novel. For many years, novels were considered light reading for young,single women,sotheyoftencontainedsometimes heavymoral instruction.Later the novel was penetratingmanyreader layers andaddressedmore fullythanother literary genres,the problemsofthewholesociety.(http://en.wikipedia.org) 6 Women,especiallyJane Austen,made a significant contributiontothe literature of thisera. Jane Austen started to write at a time when the Romantic movement was expressing its passionate involvement with the landscape, in particular, the melancholic aspects of gothic ruins, and the natural world in general. She was one of the few writers to adopt in irreverent attitude to this obsession. Jane Austen’s detached, ironic style was an antithesis of the Romantic ideal. Many people have commented on the modernity of her novels. She followed in the wake of the success of Fielding and Richardson and her sense of comedy and style has been likened to that of Fielding. She is noted for the precision of her observations. Her attention to detail is a means to enlighten a subject. (www.britannia.com) Main inspiration for Jane Austen was Samuel Richardson who is considered a precursor of the Romantic novel and the nineteenthcentury novel of social realism.Austen was inspired bythe centralityof women tohis novels bothcharacter andnarrative voice, connected with the text’s animated social exchanges and incisive social observation. (www.litencyc.com) 1.1 Sentimental novel A sentimental novel is a type of novel which was popularized in the eighteenth century.Bythe endof the eighteenthcentury,whenthe sentimental novel flourished,the term ‘sentimental’ had come to mean ‘concerned with the emotions’. People liked to believe, with JeanJacques Rousseau, that the natural emotions were good, kindly and innocent. Society, law and civilization were to blame for corrupting man; left alone by social institutions, he would be wise, happy and good. This was a controversial view because it contradicted orthodoxChristian teachingthat manwas born in a state of original sinandcouldonlybesavedbyGod’sgrace.(Ousby1992,888) Sentimental novel is a part of romantic novel andsimilarly,it is characterized by extreme emotion,which attempts toelicit anextreme emotional response inthe reader.“It may leave the reader with an optimistic and positive outlook on humanity and human nature.”(http://classiclit.about.com) Although Samuel Richardson himself did not agree with Rousseau, the higly charged emotions of Pamela and Clarissa made an important contribution to the sentimental novel. 7 Novels like HenryBrooke’s The Fool of Quality andHenryMackenzie’s The Man of Feeling set out to show that effusive emotion was evidence of a good heart, though sentimental characters oftenfoundthemselves toogoodfor this worldandthe worldtoo much for them. The heroes and heroines were beautiful, brilliant, talented and morally perfect.(Ousby1992,888) Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, a tragicomedy of clerical life, is frequently included among the hundreds of sentimental novels produced in the period, although it is arguably an early parody. Other examples of sentimental novels include: Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey ,andThomas Day’s The History of Sandford and Merton .(http://classiclit.about.com) Sentimentalism was associatedwith‘sensibility’ but it hadbecome less fashionable thanitwassuspectedbytheendofthecentury. Jane Austen mockedits excesses in Sense and Sensibility andin Northanger Abbey stressed Catherine Morland’s ordinariness by contrast to the heroines of the novel of sensibility. Hannah More saw in ‘ungoverned sensibility’ the roots of profligacy,