Even though she's selfish and manipulative, Isabella is my favorite character in the novel so far. She becomes friends with Catherine so quickly that it's almost suspicious, but Catherine is too naiive to expect anything. She almost reminds me of Lucy in Sense and Sensibility, where she is clever and tries to manipulate the situation to get what she wants, but doesn't really succeed. For example, when Isabella is trying to get Catherine to cancel her walk with Miss Tilney, she tries to get Catherine to cancel it herself by trying two different methods of manipulation one right after the other. When that doesn't work, Mr. Thorpe cancels it himself. This leaves Catherine wondering about Isabella's selfishness. In the footnote on page 106, the editor even comments that Isabella likes the card game because she is "adept at exchanging one lover for another for strictly commercial reasons". Although she is like Lucy, Catherine's reactions to her is the exact opposite of Elinor's. They are the best of friends and Catherine almost lets herself be manipulated by her. Isabella is even introduced as smarter and more worldly. I cannot wait to see what trouble this frienemy causes for her pawn Catherine.
I began to wonder if Isabelle, with her front of cleverness and her hidden manipulative self, could be a representation of Austen's view of gothic novels. They seem to have an allure, yet only manipulate the reader. While this is fun when you're reading it, as Catherine finds out, when it begins to invade your life, it becomes more of an issue.
ReplyDeleteI think Catherine's relationship with Isabelle acts as a sort of barometer for Catherine's growth throughout the novel. As Catherine becomes more self-aware in volume 2, we see her become more suspicious of Isabelle. Her realization that Isabelle has abandoned her brother catalyzes Catherine's descent into the real world: she begins to question others and herself more than we ever see her do in the first volume.
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