Anais do XIV Seminrio Nacional Mulher e Literatura / V Seminrio Internacional Mulher e Literatura

IT IS ONLY A NOVEL!: WOMEN AND NOVEL-READING

IN JANE AUSTENS NORTHANGER ABBEY
Berttoni Cludio Licario1
Smiles, sitting-rooms and readership
It is fairly expected to find one smiling when reading any of Jane
Austens novels. This immediate response, rather than the product of
contemptuous acceptance of the frivolous, is provoked by a certain sense of
impunity, of delicious youthfulness, of subtle irony and feminine wit, which
pervades all her work. As one walks with her characters, dances with them,
lays together in drawing-rooms or peruses letters of ill-favored news, one
gradually, if not immediately, grows fond of them and becomes a faithful
companion to their fortunes.
Yet, criticism has not always been supportive of that opinion. Part
of nineteenth century critics was rather harsh towards Austen, charging the
author of having too restricted a world, her representation of reality being
too narrowed to the sitting-rooms of the English genteel society. Indeed, her
writings were concerned with the daily preoccupations of the female world: the
importance of family, the necessity of marriage and the maintenance of social
intercourse are some of her major motifs. Nevertheless, according to Azerdo:
The room is a metonym for the authors worries about the

domestic universenot only concerning visits, dances,

games, talks and meetingsbut also regarding the

relationships between people that either inhabit or attend

the house; conflicting relations, most of them, involving

matters of power, authority and submission, especially
respecting women2.

1 Graduated in Letras from Universidade Federal da Paraba and Master degree student
(granted a scholarship by CNPq) in POSLIT program from Universidade Federal de Minas
Gerais.

2 AZERDO, Genilda. Jane Austen, adaptao e ironia: uma introduo. Joo Pessoa: Ed.
Manufatura, 2003. p.22. The translation to English is mine.

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In view of that, what some of those critics seem to have failed to

acknowledge was that, although restricted to bedchambers and parlors,
there is some universal tension that breaks through every novel, and
dialogues with the conventions, understandings and beliefs of readers of
different times and places. The unspoken stand that most of Romantic period
writers assumed towards Austen was due, mainly, to the antithesis between
sensibility and sense, i.e., heart and brains. Those who advocate the former
were likely to consider her works mere copies of life, thus unworthy of further
considerations; whereas the defendants of the latter were impressed by her
wit and exquisite analytical intelligence concerning her themes. On this
matter, Ian Watt suggested that:
The Romantic movement and its Victorian aftermath was in

general unlikely to be favorable to Jane Austens classical

sense of order and control. All the Romantics were seeking

in some way to transcend the limitations of actuality, to

go beyond the bounds of society, reason, and individual

experience, whether through political reform, through the
imagination, or through spiritual self-exploration3. (p.3)

Moreover, Jane Austens mastered genre, the novel, was still

fighting for a respectful position in the literary canon during the second half
of the eighteenth century. The growth of readership, related to the spread
of reading habits among the lower and middle classes of this period, was
one of the main reasons for the popularization of the novel. The new genre
supplied those new readers with a transient satisfaction that a reading for
pleasure was expected to provide. Besides, differently from medieval high
romance and the ballad, which belonged respectively to the aristocracy and
the folk, the novel was more distinctly the outcome of middle-class values
and outlook, not only in its characteristic content but in its characteristics as
a composition.4 Hence, associated with the political, social and economic
rise of the middle class, in the end of eighteenth and beginning of the
3 WATT, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1957. p.3
4

GILLIE, Christopher. A Preface to Jane Austen. London: Longman, 1974. p.59

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nineteenth century the novel had the greatest vital potentiality of all literary
forms5. And still according to Gillie, Jane Austen was probably the first
novelist to distinguish it and explore the amplitude of this genre up to its
own limitations.
Women and fiction
During the last fifteen years of the 18th century, Englishmen suddenly
sensed, as never before or since, that they lived amidst profound changes.
The Industrial Revolution had by this time sent its reverberations into the
quietest villages of the countryside. The once prevailing self-sufficiency of
the individual farmstead was forever broken, and everyone depended to
some degree upon manufacturing.
For that reason, men and women could dispose of much more
leisure time than before, especially the latter: once there was no need of
baking the bread, brewing the beer, fabricating soap and candles, spinning
and weaving, for all of those products could be found at local shops, they
became readers. Some other reasons for that are pointed out by Watt:
Women of the upper and middle classes could partake in
few of the activities of their menfolk, whether of business

or pleasure. It was not usual for them to engage in politics,

business, or the administration of their estates, while the

main masculine leisure pursuits such as hunting and

drinking were also barred. Such women, therefore, had a

great deal of leisure, and this leisure was often occupied
by omnivorous reading. 6

But what kind of book would suit such an audience? Epics, tragedies,
histories and poetry were superseded genres of archaic, militaristic
cultures7 and therefore unsuitable for the typically domesticated audience
5

Ibidem.

6
WATT, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1957. p.41

7 UTLER, Marilyn. Introduction to Northanger Abbey. In: Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey.
London: Penguin Books, 2003. p.xix

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of modern readership. Women would prefer historical novels, centred on

people, to the history of external events, and domestic drama, based on
the passions generated by personal relationships, to high tragedy or epic8.
Thus, novel-reading became an essentially feminine form of entertainment.
Shortly after, as a result of wider educational opportunities, the adequacy
of the genre to the readers own experience, the increase of their leisure
time, and eventually, the necessity of imposing themselves as consistent
and skillful writers, women began to produce novels.
On discussing women and the fiction written by them, Virginia Woolf
stated that Fiction was, as fiction still is, the easiest thing for a woman to
write.9 The reasons given by the author of Mrs. Dalloway are the following:
first, because novels are a less concentrated form of art, which implies that
it can be started or left aside according to the demands of housekeeping
routine and social obligations; second and most important, by living as she
did in the common sitting-room, surrounded by people, a woman was trained
to use her mind in observation and upon the analysis of character. She was
trained to be a novelist and not to be a poet.10 During the 1800s, as they
were forcibly withheld in a middle-class drawing-room, and deprived of a
larger range of experiences, womens writings were unsurprisingly confined
to their dwelling spaces and oftentimes resented the treatment of their sex
and pleaded for their rights.

Aware of the social deprivations of women in her time, that were

considered intellectually inferiors to men by many, Jane Austen created

innovative pieces of work, quizzically intellectual and refreshed by the
naturalness of her women. Her wit, irony and style reveal the effort of finding
her own vernacular, a sentence organisation that takes the natural shape
of her thought without crushing or distorting it11. The predicaments of her
heroines entangle the trivial and insignificant, by making them of utter
importance. According to Gillie the Jane Austen heroine has to live from her
8

Ibidem.

9 WOOLF, Virginia. Women and fiction. IN: HALE, Dorothy J. The Novel: an anthology of
criticism and theory, 1900-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. p.581
10

bidem.

11 dem, p.583

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personal resources in a space which has confined them and offers her little
scope: yet happiness and fulfillment are achieved. The art of the novels lies
in showing how they are achieved against the weight of improbability.12
In Northanger Abbey, fiction is the very subject matter of the novel:
there are frequent references to the genre conventions and oftentimes the
author seems eager to defend her art. How does Austen do so is what we are to
look upon now, focusing on the narrators intervention in Volume 1, chapter 5.
Northanger Abbey: a playful defense
Of all Jane Austens novels, Northanger Abbey is presumably the
one who most relies on the readers previous readings. To understand it
thoroughly one has to bear in mind the discussions that were taking place
during the time of its composition and the literature that preceded it,
especially the ones influenced by the Gothic sub-genre. As Marilyn Butler
suggests, in her introduction to the novel: By pooling the contemporary
novels sub-genres together to make her own continuous plot, Austen draws
attention to a family similarity and a common stock of motifs found widely
dispersed in time.13 Ultimately, indeed, Northanger Abbey depends for its
own interest, suspense and colour on being itself a romance.
In this romance, Catherine Morland, the main character, is a plain
eighteen years-old girl with a disposition rather improbable of becoming
a heroine. She is described as having a thin awkward figure, a sallow
skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features; () and not less
unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. (I, 1) All first chapter suggests
that the destiny of such an ordinary character one is to follow has a doubled
path, which ought to be simultaneously trodden by the reader: the first
covers the story of Catherines rite of passage to adulthood, which she will
undertake; the second encompasses the exploration of the possibilities of
novel-reading, by means of breaking the conventions of novelistic writing.
12 GILLIE, Christopher. A Preface to Jane Austen. London: Longman, 1974. p.97

13 UTLER, Marilyn. Introduction to Northanger Abbey. In: Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey.
London: Penguin Books, 2003. p.xxiv

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In the second sense, the opening lines of the novel reveal Austens
satire of novelistic formulas, as follow: No one who had ever seen Catherine
Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine (I, 1).
As the novel resumes, a bright pact is established between the author and
her readers, as she continues to speak directly to her audience, reminding
them of each novel convention as they are broken, ignored or put into use.
For instance, as the party sets their journey to Bath, Austens description of
the trip is constructed as a burlesque version of what should be expected
from a Gothic heroines distress: It was performed with suitable quietness
and uneventful safety. Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one
lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero. (I, 2) Then, in her account of Mrs.
Allenanother instance of the author addressing her readers, the irony
functions as to mark the differences of the parody and the parodied texts:
It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen,

that the reader may be able to judge, in what manner her

actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress

of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce

poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which

a last volume is capablewhether by her imprudence,

vulgarity, or jealousywhether by intercepting her letters,

ruining her character, or turning her out of doors.14

As Linda Hutcheon points out in her Theory of Parody, the parody

exists, essentially, when it marks a difference, not a similarity to the parodied
text. The many conventions implied in this passage, such as the length of the
novel and the predicaments of the heroines misery, were ironically inverted
by Austen as a way of spotting the parody. This was probably expected to
provoke, in the eighteenth century reader, utter amusement and serious
reflection. The necessity of well-informed readers, connoisseurs of the
works of Samuel Richardson [1689-1761] or Ann Radcliffe [1764-1823], just
to name a few of the referred authors throughout the novel, is thus of great
importance, for otherwise the parody would be neutralized.
14 AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey. London: Penguin Books, 2003. pp.20-21

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Parody, according to Hutcheon, is utterly dependant of considering

the parodic texts entire situation in the worldthe time and the place, the
ideological frame of reference, the personal as well as the social context15.
For that reason, parody is intensely context- and discourse-dependent.16
Having that in mind, associated to all that has been discussed above, on the
situation of women and the rise of novel, how can one situate Jane Austens
novel in the cultural milieu of the beginning of nineteenth century? It seems
that the defense of her genre in I, 5 of Northanger Abbey has an acceptable
answer to that question.
This short chapter is a summary of how the relationship between
Catherine and Isabella Thorpe quickly increased into the warmest affection;
and how books played an important role in their friendship. Not any kind of
books, of course, but novels:
Yes, novels;for I will not adopt that ungenerous and
impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of

degrading by their contemptuous censure the very

performances, to the number of which they are themselves
addingjoining with their greatest enemies in bestowing

the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever

permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if
she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its
insipid pages with disgust. (I, 5)

Austens main target here is obviously the silly novel writers

and readers of her time. She was probably aware of Samuel Johnsons
celebrated defense of the novel published around 1750, in which he praises
the manner of the Richardson and his followers (...) for their accurate
observation of character, naturalistic mixing of virtues and weaknesses,
and moral, educative intention.17 Nevertheless, he condemns the ignorant
novel-readers and the set of works, which Austens novels inevitably became
15 HUTCHEON, Linda. A Theory of Parody. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. p.xiii
16

Ibidem.

17 BUTLER, Marilyn. Introduction to Northanger Abbey. In: Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey.
London: Penguin Books, 2003.p.xvii

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part of. These novels are written, according to Johnson (1750),

Chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom

they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into

life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with

ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions;

not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following

the current fancy; not informed by experience, and

consequently open to every false suggestion and partial
account18.

It is rather easy to presume that Catherine Morland will be precisely

the kind of reader Johnson is describing; and, naturally, the kind of character
Austen needs to proceed in her defense. By choosing such protagonist for
her novel, it seems that Austen is assuming her work to be the very epitome
of what was wrong with fiction, and she employs herself in proving that
assumption wrong, resuming her speech with eloquent conviction:
Although our productions have afforded more extensive

and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary

corporation in the world, no species of composition has
been so much decried. () There seems almost a general
wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor

of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which

have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them. (I,5)

As the voice of an injured body (I, 5), she points out the intrinsic
values of novel-reading while remarking the frequent injustice done
towards the writers of the genre. Why should the heroine of one novel
patronise another? Novelists must stick together. Finally, in the final lines
of her discourse, Austen provides us with a fine definition of her art, as a
work, in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the
most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its
varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world
18 Available at http://www.virtualsalt.com/lit/rambler4.htm . Accessed on July, 30th 2011.

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in the best chosen language (I,5). Thus, the apology is completed, joyfully
resented but impressively accomplished.
Final remarks
Within Jane Austen oeuvre Northanger Abbey stands as a key crossreference to current claims for womens place in culture as both readers
and creators of genres of their own. By relying on her readers capacity of
recognizing her work as a parody, and inviting them to complete the novel
together with her, adding their own impressions and readings, Austen not
only defended this feminine genre as a legitimated form of art but also
guaranteed womens place in the competent readership of early nineteenth
century.
This paper tried to analyse the function of parody in the establishment
of such competence, through an historical-cultural examination of the
novels context and the role of women in the time Northanger Abbey was first
published (which happened posthumously in 1817). It neither comprehended
the whole scope of the novel, nor exhausted the many instances on the
use of the parody and its reliance on readership. It only provided a small
contributionlet us hopefor the debate of the readers importance in
the accomplishment of a literary piece, and on how, by means of exploring
such device, an author can engender a change in his/her social context.
To answer thoroughly the implications of such connection, further studies
must be employed, whether to explain how Austenian parody behaves in the
eyes of beholders of different epochs or simply to answer what magical force
keeps us smiling face any of Jane Austens works.

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References
AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
AZERDO, Genilda. Jane Austen, adaptao e ironia: uma introduo. Joo Pessoa:
Ed. Manufatura, 2003.

BUTLER, Marilyn. Introduction to Northanger Abbey. In: Jane Austen. Northanger

Abbey. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

DAY, Martin S. History of English Literature 1660-1837. New York: Doubleday &
Company, Inc., 1963.

HUTCHEON, Linda. A Theory of Parody. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Rambler (March 1750March 1752), no.4. Disponvel em:
<http://www.virtualsalt.com/lit/rambler4.htm> . Acesso em 30 de Julho de 2011.
GILLIE, Christopher. A Preface to Jane Austen. London: Longman, 1974.
MCKILLOP, Alan D. Critical Realism in Northanger Abbey. In: Ian Watt (ed). Jane

Austen : A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Inc. pp52-61.

WATT, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1957.

WOOLF, Virginia. Women and fiction. In: HALE, Dorothy J. The Novel: an anthology of
criticism and theory, 1900-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.