Gothic Conventions In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

The combination of the two previously mentioned aspects of Northanger Abbey shows that Northanger Abbey is a prime example of a parody of the traditional gothic novel. It uses traditional gothic conventions to suit its plot and make up the events in the story. The death of Mrs. Tilney, which has been mentioned earlier, is a very good example of using gothic conventions to suit the storyline of Northanger Abbey as a parody of the gothic novel. A gothic convention, a realtionship with a fatal ending, is used to govern the plot into the right direction, which is the moment that Catherine realises her gothic fantasies are not reality and should not be treated as such. In Northanger Abbey the parody of gothic conventions is created in the form of an anticliax. Austen builds up suspense like a gothic novelist would, as seen in volume two, chapter six, where Catherine first arrives in her room at Northanger Abbey. She notices a heavy chest, something she associates with her gothic novels as being mysterious, as if there is a secret in it. Austen builds up suspense by acting as if opening this chest will have a life-changing impact and the sudden interruption as follows:

Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater; and seizing, with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved at all hazards to satisfy herself at least as to its

This anticlimax is one of the most used parodic element in Northanger Abbey as it returns several times in different ways, such as the real cause of Mrs. Tilney’s death, as mentioned before. This shows that the parodic elements can be used to play with the reader, build up suspense and genuinely exite them, to only later deflate any suspense