A Gothic... parody?

Although Northanger Abbey reads very different from a gothic novel, Austen does seem to be poking fun at the conventions and techniques used in the genre. When Catherine finally looks inside the cabinet in the secret rooms she has been obsessing over, she finds not skeletons or cobwebs, but laundry bills. Which is kind of funny! It’s like Austen builds the suspense to then show how ridiculous it is. Another time she does this is when Catherine thinks that the General murdered his wife in Northanger Abbey and suspects the place to be creepy and haunted like an abbey out of a Radcliffe novel. She makes it her mission to investigate Mrs. Tilney’s rooms, just like a detective-esque character in a gothic novel. Also, when Henry jokes about Catherine’s first night in Bath and how she’ll spend it, he makes lots of small nods to gothic conventions.

Although she does make fun of a lot of the situations and unreal story lines followed in gothic novels, she also utilizes some techniques that this genre uses. One in particular that stood out to me was the use of psychological tension. Catherine’s imagination is so intense and intent on the plot of a gothic novel that she misunderstands everything and thinks that the General is always acting as a result of his guilty conscience for killing his wife. Austen goes into detail on Catherine’s gothic apparitionary visions and explores how extensive her imagination is that causes her anxiety. Way to mock what you use, Austen.