Reframe · No. 44
Northanger Abbey is not a warning against novels. Austen never wrote one.
Most readers arrive with the lesson already finished: a girl read too many Gothic novels, imagined a murder, and had to be talked back to ordinary life. That is the cliché. It is not what Jane Austen wrote.
The cabinet holds a washing-bill. Henry tells her to remember the country and the age. Then the General orders a chaise for seven, with no servant, because a man in Bath had called her an heiress and later called her family poor. The narrator says she had scarcely magnified his cruelty.
What most readers assume
“A satire whose lesson is to stop trusting novels: Catherine's Gothic guesses are foolish, Henry's lecture is the moral, and the washing-bill proves imagination is the danger.”
What Jane Austen actually stages
Most readers arrive with the lesson already chosen: a girl read too many Gothic novels, imagined a murder in an abbey, and had to be talked back into ordinary life. Jane Austen wrote the book around 1798. It appeared in 1818, the year after she died. In Chapter 5 she stops the plot to answer the phrase people use in company: it is only a novel. She names Cecilia, Camilla, and Belinda as works in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed. The cabinet in Catherine's room holds a washing-bill: shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats, then a farrier's line about a chestnut mare. Henry tells her to remember the country and the age, and a neighbourhood of voluntary spies. She weeps and runs to her room. That is the lecture the popular summary keeps. The novel continues. In Chapter 28 the General orders a hired chaise for seven o'clock, with no servant and no farewell. Eleanor lends the money for the road. In Chapter 30 the narrator says that in suspecting him of murdering or shutting up his wife, Catherine had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.
Northanger Abbey · Jane Austen
The popular summary keeps the washing-bill and Henry's lecture. The novel sends her home at seven in a hired chaise, then says she scarcely magnified his cruelty.
Common Questions
Search questions this reframe installment answers about Northanger Abbey.
Is Northanger Abbey a warning against reading novels?
Chapter 5 stops the story to answer the phrase used in company: it is only a novel. The narrator names Cecilia, Camilla, and Belinda as works in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, and contrasts them with the Spectator, whose papers she calls coarse and full of improbable circumstances. The washing-bill corrects one guess Catherine made inside the abbey. It does not cancel that defence.
What does Catherine find in the cabinet at Northanger?
In Chapter 22 she opens the roll she took for a manuscript and finds a washing-bill. The sheets list shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats. Two more list letters, hair-powder, shoe-string, and breeches-ball. The outer sheet begins 'To poultice chestnut mare': a farrier's bill. She hides the papers before breakfast.
What does Henry Tilney say about her suspicions?
In Chapter 24 he finds her in his mother's room and asks what she has been judging from. He tells her to remember the country and the age in which they live, that they are English and Christians, and to consult her own sense of the probable. He asks whether such atrocities could stay hidden where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open. She runs to her room in tears of shame.
Why does General Tilney send Catherine home?
Chapter 28: he returns from London at night and has Eleanor tell her that a chaise will be at the door at seven, with no servant and no farewell from him. Her purse will not cover the journey, and Eleanor lends the money. Chapter 30 explains the cause. John Thorpe had called her the future heiress of Fullerton. After the Morland match with his sister failed, he told the General the family was necessitous and that the Fullerton estate would go to someone else. The General set out the next day. The dismissal at the abbey is that errand.
Does Austen say Catherine was right about the General?
She was wrong about the corpse. In Chapter 25, after Henry's lecture, Catherine already decides his father is not perfectly amiable. In Chapter 30, once Henry has explained the fortune story, the narrator says she heard enough to feel that in suspecting General Tilney of murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.
How does Northanger Abbey end?
In Chapter 31 Eleanor marries a viscount, and Austen adds that he is the gentleman whose negligent servant left the washing-bills. The General learns Catherine will have three thousand pounds, and that the Fullerton estate can still be left as its owner chooses. He sends Henry with a courteous consent. They marry within a twelvemonth of first meeting. The narrator then asks the reader to settle whether the book recommends parental tyranny, or rewards filial disobedience.