I have just been reading quite a good book that I own called A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Reasons Why We Can't Stop Reading Jane Austen. It's a good book - consisting of a bunch of essays by a bunch of different people all on the topic of (duh) Jane Austen. (Although I feel rather humiliated when I re-read that and see 'duh' and 'Jane Austen' sharing a sentence. I'm so ashamed! It's late at night, OK!)
Although all these essays are written with different topics - some focus on Jane Austen's works as a whole, some on particular books, some on Jane Austen herself - you get the picture - I notice that none of these essay writers seem to like Catherine Morland (yes, her name is spelt with a 'C'. I too see this as a problem. But not that much of a problem.)
There aren't as many essays on the topic of Northanger Abbey itself, which disappoints me: it is my second favourite Austen novel. To be sure, the book is more of a gentle parody of Gothic fiction than it is pointed social comedy/drama (though, being Austen, these elements are not absent), but the book is well crafted and just as worthy of your attention as any other of Jane Austen's masterpieces.
Despite my awareness of Northanger Abbey's unpopularity I am shocked at the amount of dislike the innocent Miss Morland has acquired from her critics! Susan Carson, whose essay is entitled 'Reading Northanger Abbey' pronounces the romance between Henry Tilney and Catherine 'unconvincing' and even goes so far as to compare their union to that of Mr and Mrs Bennet. Carson's reasoning behind her deduction goes along this path: Mr. Bennet and Henry are both very intelligent men who marry women who assuredly do not traverse the same intellectual plane as they do - and Carson proposes that Tilney's marriage must end up as Mr. Bennet's does, with partners so incompatible that all they can do is mock and irritate one another. What she does, in my manner of thinking, is underestimate the young (but not irredeemable) Mrs. Tilney and the affection she is capable of inspiring in a man who understands her properly.
If Henry were Mr. Knightley (of Emma), his stern scoldings would be too much for Catherine, whose foolishness is not of the selfish, unthoughtful kind, as Emma's is: Henry's rebuke, though honest, is sensitive. Rather than saying 'I cannot see you acting wrong without remonstrance,' as Knightley does, Tilney addresses Catherine thus: 'Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?' Of course, both the ladies react with shame and an internal crisis of character, but both gentlemen are speaking from an earnest desire to set their lady straight on an important matter - and each does so in a manner appropriate to the lady of his choice.
Catherine may not be Henry's match in a playful verbal sparring match - but I don't think many shy, unworldy seventeen-year-olds could be. And I don't think Henry would particularly like her to be: he lightly enjoys teasing her and making her think harder, without desiring much more except her company. Perhaps a conversation between Elizabeth Bennet and Henry Tilney would make good reading - their wit is of a similar variety - but I don't think they could be happily married to one another. Jane Austen knew a good match when she wrote one: and she wrote several very good ones. Elizabeth's wit attracts Darcy and draws him out of his shell - Tilney's wit does the same for Catherine. And what a critic may overlook (particulary a critic who is able to draw paralells between Catherine and Mrs. Bennet) is that, though she is short of worldly knowledge and intellectual experience, Catherine Morland has a sound moral centre that keeps her stablewhen thrown into a new environment of inconstant friends and selfish snobs, as well as an emotional honesty that, though subject to her frivolous and over-credulous imagination, proves to be her most endearing trait. Her instinct about John Thorpe's untrustworthiness and coarse behaviour proves correct - and though her imagination plays her false in the case of Henry's father, her emotional judgement of him as a selfish and tyrannical man proves to be sound and well-founded. Unlike Mrs. Bennet, Catherine is not attention seeking or self aggrandising; she does not favour people for their wealth but rather for their worth, and her affection and admiration for Tilney ring true.
If there were truly a Henry Tilney and a Catherine Morland, I think that they would, indeed, love each other honestly.
"But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."
Now, I need only decide which to re-read: a work of Jane Austen, a Bronte book or Gone With The Wind...
This was brought to you by Vanilla Superior Black Tea, keeping me awake when I should be asleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment