Northanger Abbey was written to be a satire over the popular
Gothic
novels of the late 1700s in England,
and
of particular focus was Anne Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho in
1794. It follows the rather amusing adventures of
Catherine Morland, a girl from a comfortable life as the daughter of a
village
clergyman, as she goes to Bath for a
season with her wealthy friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen. There she meets
Isabella Thorpe, whose
brother John is a friend to Catherine’s brother,
James – and who instigates and
encourages Catherine’s fascination with romantic fantasies and gothic
fiction. Isabella tries to have her irresponsible brother John and
Catherine get engaged after she, herself,
becomes engaged to Catherine’s brother, but Catherine is more
interested in
Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey. His father,
under the impression that Catherine is quite well-off, invites her to
stay at
Northanger Abbey, and all of the gothic
novels that she’s read come
back to
haunt her. She convinces herself that
General Tilney murdered his late wife and that the Abbey is like the
setting
for one of the novels that she reads, which leads to her humiliation
when the General returns and orders her from the Abbey. This is just
after his son, Henry, shatters her illusions about the
Abbey and about his father being a tyrannical dictator with dark
designs and
even darker deeds – and he isn’t, but he still is a too-strict man who
could be a tyrannical dictator for their current age. The General was
told falsely, once more, by John Thorpe that Catherine
had no money and had deceived him. Given
Catherine has realized how scheming and horrible that Isabella and John
are by
then, she breaks off her friendship with them. In the meantime, Henry
Tilney’s brother, Captain Tilney, has caused
Isabela to break off her engagement to James Morland, but he leaves her
to her
own devices, quite without a husband and she gets her just desserts.
When the General finds out that Catherine
really will have a fairly large income, and after he and his son have
an argument and then he’s followed Catherine to explain the
misunderstanding to
her family, General Tilney allows his clergyman son to marry Catherine
– which
is what they had both wanted.