Over Exaggeration as Narrative Technique

To double the effect of her mock Gothic style, I noticed Austen's characters reflecting some of her techniques. Upon their journey to Bath, the narrators notes "Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero. Nothing more alarming occurred that a fear, on Mrs. Allen's side, of having once left her clogs behind her at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless" (43). Austen over exaggerates what could (or should) have happened on their trip were this a gothic novel, and shortly juxtaposes it with the mundane actual occurrences. Although both events--a tempest and losing shoes--are fictitious, this strategy of comparison gives Austen's plot the semblance of being more real, closer to reality than a gothic novel. Similarly, upon his first meeting with Catherine, Henry Tilney seems to over exaggerate the importance of domestic items such as a journal and muslin. He questions, "Not keep a journal!...How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities...?" (50). Whereas the gothic novel seems to argue that fantastic happenings are reality, the personal journal makes everyday reality fantastic. He seems to be saying that rather than recording and dissecting what happens, ladies should instead live their lives and experience what happens. Tilney's exaggeration works in much the same way as the narrator's to reinforce the notion that Catherine's life is "reality," and that other ways of writing are obviously too over blown to have any grounding.