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Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey Chapters 1-10 (Catherine Moreland's…
Jane Austen's
Northanger Abbey
Chapters 1-10
What genre is this: a tale? with dialogue (3rd person limited b/c we mainly get Catherine Moreland's thoughts but not others)
Catherine: supposed to be the "heroine" : "no one who had seen Catherine in her infancy supposed her to be a
heroine
": shows how she might have to change to fit the role (thereby calling attention to how this role is perscribed)
uses of meta-fiction:
critiques expectations of heroines in fiction
makes genre expectations and plays on assumptions for foreshadowing
Catherine Moreland's character
not the brightest: "she never could learn or understand anything before she was taught" (early ditzy trope"
mediocre at everything: "she is almost pretty today" (39); "she grew clean as she grew smart" moving from tomboy to "woman"--getting noticed as a woman (and rewarding it with positive regard)
"in training for a heroine" (39); training towards wife, training towards proper gender
How does cross-sex desire/heterosexuality work in this novel?
men can choose, women can reject? "man has advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal" (95); set in a ball, a microcosm of social culture; the context of men securing access to women: is Austen skeptical or supportive of this way of organizing gendered roles?
Mr. Tilney:
mysterious family, no mom, ooooh spooky
more varied in his masculinity: "men commonly take so little notice of those things" notices fashion, and price of fashion
refining masculinity, making it agreeable/desireable
same-sex friendship/attraction: "the men think us incapable of friendship (chp 6)
Mr. Thorpe as truck guy of 18th Century; Austen as comparative masculinities
58-9: YES NOVELS speech: it feels defensive, yes I'm bringing up novels in my novel: "if the heroine of one novel" suggests threat from one woman to another; novels as a frivolous waste of time; Mr. Thorpe won't be caught: "I never read novels" --genders readerships, a young woman's waste of time, not for manly men like Thorpe
Austen uses novels to show women's fantasies, but culture tries to separate reality from fantasy.
women aren't allowed pleasure in/with media consumption