November 25, 2008

Photo still of actress Felicity Jones, who plays the heroine Catherine Morland, in a UK TV version of Northanger Abbey.

Main Point:

Jane Austen has tremendous population currency in our culture. Her novels (especially Pride and Prejudice), have been adapted into films and have spades of continuations made about them. This culture of investment in Austen’s works is peculiar considering that she has a small number of works that tell the stories of small distant worlds (her stories take place between the years of 1798-1815). Nonetheless, we are invested in her as a “great novelist.” This, again, is surprising because Austen wasn’t known as a novelist at all in her time. She published her novels anonymously, publishing the first under the name of “by a lady” and subsequent novels under “by the author of Pride and Prejudice.”

It is possible that Northanger Abbey was Austen’s first book. It was written when she was in her early 20’s and parodies the most significant female author of her time, Ann Radcliffe. (Radcliffe was a best-selling author at the time, and wrote such books as Mysteries of Udolpho, which Catherine reads in Northanger Abbey although it is ironic that Radcliffe is now practically forgotten and there remains a mythology around Austen). Austen was paid £10 by a publisher for Northanger Abbey but he sat on it for years. Austen only reclaimed the book toward the end of her life, after which she revised it and later died in 1816, leaving it unpublished. (Her revisions include changing the protagonist’s name from Susan to Catherine). Her brothers and sisters found the novel after her death and published it, along with Persuasion, revealing her identity as author.

There is the mistaken notion, when thinking of Austen, that she was a shrinking violet reluctant to write, the spinster aunt. This is untrue, although her family promoted the idea that their sister was a shy country girl endowed with an unusual gift but not interested in fame and that this was the reason why she cloaked all of her novels in a shroud of anonymity. It was, however, comparatively unusual for women to publish anything in her time and Austen was simply following the conventions of the time. In fact, Austen was very attentive to her publications. She worked on a plan: she wrote a series of novels and published one right after another. This got her greater acclaim although it was cut short by her sickness.

 We don’t know as much as we would like about Austen, although we do know that she lived in the country-side and her father was a minister. She lived a middle-class life and when her father retired, he moved the entire family to Bath where they lived from 1801-1805. It is a sign that the family didn’t much enjoy their time there that they moved back to the countryside after their father died. Jane, especially, found Bath to be extraordinarily superficial.

This, of course, brings about the question of why Austen would set her novel in Bath. Since she was parodying Gothic novels, Bath is the complete opposite. It is a resort town, it is light and modern and it is the opposite of the dark Gothic castle so central to Gothic novels. Bath was a place to be seen and it drew people from all over the country. Catherine, however, isn’t an insider and is unaware of the many social customs that accompany life in Bath. There is a book, for example, in the main assembly room where visitors signed their name and where they were staying so that everyone would know where everyone else was.  There is a superficiality about it all that Austen brings to light as she portrays Catherine’s extreme naïveté.  

Close Reading 1: 

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine...[Her father] had a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying bringing the latter into the world, as any body might expect, she still lived on--lived to have six children more--to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself." (p. 5)

The first close reading is on the first page of the novel, page 5, Volume 1, chapter 1. From the very first sentence we see a considerable difference in any other novel. There are few novels, if any, that start with negation ("No one...") and we should understand that Austen did this on purpose to catch our attention. Also, notice that the preposition for heroine is "an" instead of the expected "a."  This isn't incorrect grammar, it is just odd grammar, and it causes the reading to have to slow down when reading it, and puts a great emphasis on the word "heroine."

In addition, we talked about how Austen is poking fun at the gothic novel and its formulaic qualities, particularly Ann Radcliffe's novels, which were vastly popular at the time. In the first sentence for example, Austen is playing with the assumption that heroes and heroines would be identifiable from birth to begin with. Also, she gets rid of the assumption that the heroine's father is a tyrannical patriarch, like the ones we saw in A Sicilian Romance for example, by making him a father who is kind and "not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters."  Also, the gothic novel is known to have a missing, ineffectual, or dead mother, but this book has a mother who did not die in childbirth, and is instead very present and enjoys "excellent health herself." This close reading shows the reader from the very beginning that this is going to be unlike a gothic novel and it assumes that the reader will know and have read novels like Radcliffe's in order to compare it to. 

Close Reading 2:

"I have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have no yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have been very negligent--but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these particulars? If you are I will begin directly..." (p. 14)

The second close reading we did was from pages 14-16, Volume 1, chapter III, and it takes place the first time Catherine meets Henry Tilney. The purpose of this close reading was to point out the strange formulaic and numbing conversations that take place between two strangers of the opposite sex when meeting for the first time. It goes over the social norms and what is expected to be asked and said in a conversation such as this. From their conversation, Henry is mocking the formulaic conversation, especially in his line of questioning:

'...Were you never here before, madam?'

'Never, sir.'

'Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?'

'Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.'

'Have you been to the theatre?'

'Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.'

'To the concert?'

'Yes, sir, on Wednesday.'

'And are you altogether pleased with Bath?'

'Yes--I like it very well.'

(p. 15)

From this, we gather that Bath is all about where you go, when you go there, who you are with, et cetera. The entertaining and leisurely aspect of Bath is made to feel altogether boring and numbing. In lecture, Professor O'Brien said something along the lines of, "This really doesn't seem all that fun," because there is really no spontaneity or enjoyment that seems to be coming from this type of entertainment. Henry is mocking the extremely structured, and scheduled entertainments of Bath, like those also seen in Evelina.  This is also telling of Austen's own view of the ridiculous "social norms" of Bath. 

Further, Henry goes on to talk about Catherine writing in her journal, but Catherine retorts:

'But, perhaps, I keep no journal.'

'Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to  be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?'

(p. 15-16)

This accusation by Henry is founded in previous novel's obsession with letters, as shown in epistolary novels such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela. Catherine however, is obviously not like the typical heroine of novels in the past and when Henry mentions that female journalizing is the reason women write such good letters, Catherine ponders on that very idea.

The purpose of this close reading as a whole is to touch on the formulaic quality of entertainment in Bath, the social expectations of conversation and activity in Bath, as well as the action of journal and letter writing by women of Catherine's age and class.

Referent: 

 http://www.online-literature.com/austen/northanger/

This site is a great source to go to for help understanding Northanger Abbey. The site goes through and explains elements of each chapter and also has some really helpful links.  The links include information about Jane Austen herself, quizzes about the novel so you can test your understanding, and also several essays written about the book.  I found this site to be very helpful and could prove useful while studying for the final exam.

Text Referent: muslin

The explanatory notes at the back of our book define muslin as a “finely woven and then costly fabric, imported from India, and used for dresses and cravats, as well as curtains.”

As it has appeared so frequently in our books this semester in descriptions of characters’ evening wear, and as it plays such an important role in Catherine’s conversations with Mr. Tilney at their first meeting, I thought I would do a little extra research on it.

According to Wikipedia, “Muslin is most typically a closely-woven unbleached or white cloth, produced from corded cotton yarn.” The article also notes that muslin “breathes well, and is a good choice of material for clothing meant for hot, dry climates.” (Raising the question of why it became so popular in cool, wet England…) Interestingly, in the United States, “muslin” refers to “a firm cloth, for everyday use,” while in England, that firm cloth is called “calico.” The fabric is believed to have been first produced in Bangladesh, but was named for the city of Mosul in Iraq, from which it was first exported to England in the 17^th century.

It is significant that muslin is usually an “unbleached or white cloth.” When it is worn by Catherine or Miss Tilney, it could be read not only as a sign of their gentility because of its costliness and fashionableness, but also as a sign of their pure, simple, unaffected natures, in opposition to characters like Isabella (is she ever described as wearing it?).

If anyone is really intrigued by Austen’s use of muslin, I found an article by Clair Hughes, titled “Talk About Muslin: Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey,’” which unfortunately I could not get access to (even through UVa’s library system). It was published in her book, Dressed in Fiction in 2006.