In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen describes Catherine Moreland, an ordinary girl who becomes an unexpected heroine. Catherine Moreland led a simple life with her plain and pleasant family, and when looking at her childhood alone, she was certainly not destined for greatness, as most heroes are attributed to be. Austen details Catherine’s childhood and utilizes literary techniques to introduce and develop Catherine Moreland’s character. Throughout the passage, Austen uses indirect characterization and direct characterization combined with point of view to illustrate Catherine’s seemingly plain and simple personality.
Austen begins with a description of Catherine Moreland’s home life and family, and through these descriptions, Catherine’s character is indirectly characterized. Catherine’s parents are described as unpretentious people. Her father was merely a clergyman making a humble living, and her mother “a woman of common plain sense”. Neither pushed Catherine to be anything she didn’t want to be or to do anything she didn’t want to do. Austen wrote, “Mrs. Moreland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity of distaste, allowed her to leave off.” Catherine’s mother simply let her stop piano lessons because
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As a child, she lived a humble upbringing alongside her nine other siblings, and she participated in normal childhood acts. She was almost mischievous in her youth, but with Austen's positive descriptions, it is clear that she was still pleasant and warmhearted. Catherine Moreland's simple lifestyle and pleasant personality is revealed through Austen's utilization of direct and indirect characterization and point of view. Although Catherine Moreland's childhood was humble, plain, and no where near destined for greatness, Austen introduces a likable, relatable, and unexpected heroine in the opening passages of Northanger
Hardships and difficult experiences are vital parts of life that have the ability to shape people. In Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte we see how Bronte uses nouns to foreshadow. Adding on, in the Gothic novel Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte uses the protagonist's emotionally and physically abusive experiences to foreshadow her future decisions and development into a strong independent person. Foreshadowing is presented in the novel in such forms as through setting, allusions, and motifs, in which they all link up to the ending of the book - how Jane ends up to be.
Cynthia Lord has used character and style to create a novel of contemporary realistic fiction about a young girl struggling to accept the world she lives in. Lord uses dialogue to build a relationship between Catherine and Jason. It’s through these conversations that Lord is able to expose Catherine’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to living with David, developing new friendships and accepting the reality of her life. It’s these strengths and weaknesses that help the reader identify with her. Lord’s unique style also helps the reader get a peek into the lives of the characters.
Different experiences such as the hanging and Roger’s death teach the horrors of society, her mother and the Jewish lady teach Catherine how to be herself, and animals like the ant and the bear teach her how the little things could be huge to others. One experience that leads Catherine to discover the need for change is her lack of both sense and direction. She often speculates about all she will do when she grows up. “I am no minstrel or wart charmer, but me”(Cushman
According to Edmund Burke, utter amazement as a result of excitement can also be a sublime experience. Catherine Morland, comes from a modest family in the small rural town in North Hampshire in England, so when the Allen family offers an invitation to visit Bath on a trip, Catherine undoubtedly accepts with sheer enthusiasm and anticipation at what lies ahead. Her vulnerability and innocence is highlighted in the opening chapters of the story “…she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid” (Austen 8), this highlights her openness to experiencing the
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is a Bildungsroman, a coming of age story that focuses on the psychological development of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. This essay will analyse the language and narrative techniques of the extract, and discuss how it suggests vicissitudes in Catherine’s personal perspectives and relationships. In addition, it will discuss the ‘domestic gothic’ and abuse ubiquitous in ordinary situations. Furthermore, it will argue how Austen’s rhetorical techniques work to encourage reader interest as well as exercising perception when distinguishing between appearance and reality. Finally, it will conclude by briefly discussing the significance of the extract within the novel’s wider themes.
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is a Bildungsroman, a coming of age story that focuses on the psychological development of the protagonist, Catherine Morland. This essay will analyse the language and narrative techniques of the extract, and discuss how it suggests vicissitudes in Catherine’s personal perspectives and relationships. In addition, it will discuss the ‘domestic gothic’ and abuse ubiquitous in ordinary situations. Furthermore, it will argue how Austen’s rhetorical techniques work to encourage reader interest as well as exercising perception when distinguishing between appearance and reality. Finally, it will conclude by briefly discussing the significance of the extract within the novel’s wider themes.
Oftentimes, minor characters help to reveal a theme or contribute to the characterization of the protagonist. In the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Helen Burns serves as a foil character to the protagonist, Jane Eyre. Throughout the novel, Helen’s docile and pious nature helps to emphasize Jane’s development from a passionate girl to a modest woman. Helen’s theological beliefs also allow her to serve as a foil character to Mr. Brocklehurst, the headmaster of Lowood Institution, and St John Rivers, a zealous missionary, in order to reveal how Christianity is used to control Jane. Compared to the male characters in the novel, Helen’s positive use of religion proves to be more effective in encouraging Jane to adopt Christian values.
In Charlotte Brontё’s novel, Jane Eyre, the main character, an orphan girl, encounters hardships throughout her childhood. The author complements the plot of the story by creating a feeling of constraint and imprisonment through which the orphan girl must overcome. Through the proper use of diction, imagery, and atmosphere, Brontё is able to create such a delicate feeling. Throughout the first chapter of her novel, Brontё implements diction that conveys a negative connotation.
In Charlotte Bronte’s novel “Jane Eyre” Edward Fairfax Rochester plays a contributing role in Janes development and growth as a character and human being in the Victorian time period. Not only does he play a large role in her independency, but in her emotional and spiritual growth as well. She grows around him whether she likes it or not. Due to Edwards manipulative and seductive nature, jane has to grow and develop in a way that has her frequently questioning her own ideals, whether that be spiritually or morally, and strengthening her independence by constantly refusing her feelings for him and adapting to punishing situations. Edward also opens Janes eyes to a world that is bigger than she realized due to his company at the house, wealth, and opportunities at the favorable Thornfeild manor at which she was employed by him.
The notion that a young woman must be either engaged or pursuing an engagement was a common standard for women in the 19th century. Women looking for an engagement, must uphold high standards with strong morals as well as being wholly pure of both body and mind. Jane Austen depicts the main characters of her novels as being strong individuals in the midst of these societal standards. These significant morals in Northanger Abbey, influence the characters, such as Catherine and Isabella, in how they make their decisions. Additionally, the main character Catherine Morland, a young lady, learns the ways of presenting herself in the best light possible.
In Northanger Abbey the novel, Austen relies heavily on the narrative voice – particularly understatement – to satirize tropes of the gothic novel. The film does, in fact, use a narrator in the very beginning of the movie when detailing Catherine’s birth and childhood and that same narrator comes into play once again in the end of the movie for a kind of epilogue and wrapping up of plot threads, but it wouldn’t be plausible to use this narrator throughout the entire film. The film is very successful in portraying Catherine’s views of the gothic novel by cutting to scenes plucked from her imagination in which she projects the events of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Mathew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk onto reality, often inserting herself in place of the heroine and, in one particular instance, Henry Tilney as a hero. These scenes get progressively more over the top and melodramatic, peaking, perhaps, in the scene where Catherine imagines herself finding Isabella captured and bound to a bed by Captain Frederick Tilney, whom Catherine casts as the villain of the drama.
At the beginning of the novel, Catherine is described as a wild and rebellious child. However, that changes after her stay with the Linton’s. When she returns from her stay her “manners were much improved,” and “instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house…there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in” (46). Catherine was tempted by the way of life the Linton’s lived and, to fit in, has concealed her wild and rebellious nature. She confides in her housekeeper that she loves Heathcliff, but can’t marry him because it would “degrade” her (71).
1.4 Literature overview At the end of the nineteen century, was published a book, for the first time, concerning Jane Austen’s literary work. Exactly in 1890, the writer Godwin Smith gave for printing Life of Jane Austen, and from then he started a new era which values the author’s literary legacy, so others begun to write critics; thus, this moment marked the first step of the authorized criticism, focused on Austen’s writing style. In conformity with B.C. Southam Critical Heritage, the criticism attributed to Jane had increased after 1870 and became formal and organized. Therefore, “we see the novels praised for their elegance of form and their surface ‘finish’; for the realism of their fictional world, the variety and vitality of their characters;
I. Introduction Jane Austen’s Persuasion contains an abundance of references to reading and literature. Characters often read something, be it a book, a newspaper, a navy list or an advertisement. Examining the episodes in which reading or literary works play a part provides an excellent opportunity to study and interpret the novel from a specific and well-defined point of view.
She is an English nurse who fell in love with Frederic Henry. She is exceptionally beautiful. At the beginning of the novel Catherine`s grief for her dead fiance changed her thoughts about war. When she meets Frederic Henry she gives herself freely to him. During the novel, we get to know that Catherine is very afraid of the rain, but why?