Do leave any comments that you have. Can you think of any other great examples of the narrative voice speaking directly to the reader in Austen's novels?

@alexgabriel5423

2 жыл бұрын

Could this be summarized better? Really!!

@edithengel2284

Жыл бұрын

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.” ― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

I am perhaps in a minority here, but I absolutely ADORED how Catherine and Henry's relationship develops and explained and would LOVE a video where you explore it more. Personally, I never viewed the fact that he didn't have any particular interest in her at first to be any indication that there was any lack of any real affection - quite the opposite, it read to me as a very mature coming to love (rather a fun contrast with how Catherine is rather young and a touch less mature to start with) It makes perfect sense, that Mr. Tilney, being a decent sort of guy, isn't necessarily looking to prey on his younger sister's friends, particularly ones that have been relatively sheltered and are really only just coming out in the world (again, perhaps a fun contrast between him and Mr. Thorpe?). But rather as he gets to know her as his sister's friend, and realizes she is catching feelings for him, (and for all that he likes teasing her more silly flights of fancy) HE TAKES HER SERIOUSLY! It's such a credit to him that he DOESN'T just blow off the fact that she is getting a crush on him as her just being a silly little girl but rather it causes him to give her "serious thought" - he regards her emotions and opinions on the matter as important, and worthy of consideration. And upon that consideration, an actual affection grew. It makes up one of my reasons why I consider Henry Tilney one of Jane Austen's best, kindest, funniest and most decent of men that she created.

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

Very eloquently articulated. I think your point about Henry contrasting with John Thorpe (and indeed General Tilney) in seeing Catherine as prey is sharp. As too is your observation that Henry takes Catherine seriously - so too I think should we also as readers. Both Henry and Catherine I find are generally unfairly overlooked & underrated.

@thepresence365

2 жыл бұрын

I was won over by Mr. Darcy, but I stayed for Mr. Tilney 😄

I always think Austen makes almost all of her heroines so young (except for Anne, really) because she sees so many young women "coming out" and making the ONE important decision of their lives based only on the experiences of a VERY sheltered upbringings and the guidance of often unreliable parents.

Catherine Morland is, next to Fanny, my favorite Austen heroine for what Austen did to her: she made her virtue playful. I found her delightful.

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

I have a real soft spot for Catherine Morland too.

@63Speed63

3 жыл бұрын

​@@DrOctaviaCox I just finished rereading NA and I need to somewhat alter my simplified view of Catherine, for I think I've conflated in my mind her character with Emily St. Aubert's and their "playfulness" in being afraid of the dark, so to speak. Such a “folly” can be a charming trait, and such a fun thing typically leaves us as we age. That said, due to your extremely insightful videos here, after a closer reading of NA I was left with a very different feeling than before. Firstly, this novel is without a doubt an homage to Udolpho. As you’ve alluded to, Austen’s strong defense of novels would never have her making fun of another novel. Also important is the bond that links the novel to reality. For after all, we are talking about a girl’s feelings here, whether in a novel or in reality, and one should NEVER casually dismiss another’s FEELINGS. The other main thing I picked up this time, however, is sadness. Catherine’s purity of heart is her best virtue, and in the novel we are shown the honest innocence of her actions. A heart full of goodness, honest and innocence, and it’s a major credit to Austen to have made such a heroine. However, and this is where the sadness arises, nearly every relationship Catherine undertakes in the novel ends in a loss of innocence; and often bitterly so. Maybe Austen choice of such a heroine was to illustrate the bravery and fortitude often required when losing one’s innocence. This is an amazing novel.

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

I agree that it's an amazing novel! Certainly with Isabella and John Thorpe, and General Tilney. But her relationships with Eleanor and Henry Tilney don't make her lose her innocence in a bitter way, do they? In fact, don't they both value Catherine's purity of heart?

@63Speed63

3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox I hope you don't mind if I make an attempt to answer those questions. :) Yes, they do value her purity and leave not Catherine in a bitter way through their relationships as compared to the others. However, for what it's worth, having two older brothers and a particularly overbearing, if not downright abusive, father has made Eleanor a virtuous heroine in her own right (I found her extremely interesting!) To split straws, Eleanor’s virtue is a virtue to smite evil, or defend against adversity, formed in part, since her mother may have been wonderful, to overcome the effects of a tyrannical father, deceased mother, and two older brothers. Adversity can be a builder of character and of virtue, but is not equal, in my opinion, to Catherine's virtue that stems from goodness and innocence and is therefore more pure. The former virtue (from adversity) can be risky, and, at worst, may even break a person. Through her friendship with Eleanor, Catherine sees the truth of General Tilney, and, though not exactly bitter, is certainly a sobering indication of what effect (or damage) his tyranny had on his daughter and his wife. This understanding of the trials placed upon Eleanor and the mother is a waking-up for Catherine, bitter only against the General, though Catherine will likely forgive him, of course. As for Henry, though he is the one ultimately improved (by Catherine and parental tyranny), in the beginning of the novel he treats her as was mentioned in my NA Introduction, with "affable highhandedness." Like the Tilney’s, I have a younger sister, she two older brothers, with me in the middle, a now deceased abusive father (alcoholism) and wonderful now deceased mother. I believe I was somewhat guilty of such affable highhandedness to my younger sister attempting to compensate for our father’s failings while helping out our mother. However, my sister eventually thought me a know-it-all and grew bitter of my "assistance." Luckily none of this went too far as I was ultimately shown my error by our mother. The improvement of Henry is a very good thing as no one tolerates much highhandedness, affable or otherwise, without a risk of growing bitterness.

@HRJohn1944

3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox Ummmm - I'm beginning to feel "sick and wicked". There are very few characters in JA's novels as lovable as Catherine, but "purity of heart" is, with great respect, not a phrase that I would use. She is "affectionate", "cheerful ... without conceit or affectation", (at her best) "pretty", with a mind "as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is " (Ouch!! JA was a bit unforgiving of her own sex.) "Oh! dear, there are a great many people like me, I dare say, only a great deal better. Good morning to you." Now Catherine is trying to tell her friend's brother and her brother's friend - as politely as possible - to get lost, but I don't think that she is being falsely modest. She slightly underestimates herself, true - when she is on the walk with Eleanor and Henry and they start to discuss views, she realises how ignorant (in this respect) she is - but, to quote Socrates (i think) recognising one's ignorance is the beginning of knowledge. That she doesn't know how to overcome this ignorance, is also true - but its recognition is a start So she has much to learn, of course. But (unlike the very well-educated Eleanor - and, indeed, all of the Tilneys) she is just an ordinary lower-middle-class (or, to use Orwell's category, "upper lower-middle-class") 17-year-old. "Your sister taught me (to love a hyacinth)" she says to Henry: without being in any way pedagogic (or even conscious of what she is doing), I suspect that when the two young women are alone at Northanger, Eleanor manages to "teach" Catherine a great many things. The "purity of heart" that Eleanor and Henry both value, is what I would call Catherine's common human decency. What they can't understand is why the General takes so warmly to her - but they are happy not to look gift horses in the mouth. What is odd is the General's stupidity: Catherine's displays her class origins (which are, of course, much lower than those of the Tilneys) again and again at Northanger - and the General misses the point, just as he missed the point when - at Bath - Catherine doesn't wait to be presented by the servant (as any upper-class, or nouveau-riche arriviste might), she simply rushes past the servant, runs up the stairs and proceeds with her (not quite) explanation of how Miss Tilney was deceived by John Thorpe about the Thorpes' and James Morland's proposed outing. One last word about the General: '..and never had the General loved his daughter so well in all her hours of companionship, utility and patient endurance, as when he first hailed her, "Your Ladyship!"'. I'm not sure that this isn't really the most unpleasant thing said about him in the whole novel.

I'd love more videos on Northanger. It's my favorite of Austen's novels and terribly undervalued. Catherine is one of the most realistic depictions of female adolescence I've read, and I wonder sometimes if our dislike of teenage girls influences whether we take the novel seriously.

Just binge-listened to all of this novel on audiobook today and one thing I really like about Catherine (and the other characters as well) is that she is just a human person. Like you said she makes mistakes and her purpose isn’t to teach a lesson, instead she reflects the thoughts, emotions, and reactions that real people have. She can be extremely relatable to female readers, more so than any gothic heroine ever could, because she is there simply to be Catherine Morland and not an example of how a girl should behave.

More on Northanger Abbey please.

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

Duly noted!

@annnee6818

3 жыл бұрын

Seconded. People often ignore Northanger Abbey but Tilney is arguably one of the best Austen heroes... he even understands muslin! :)

@thepresence365

2 жыл бұрын

@@annnee6818 He must be a great comfort to his sister 😉

One of my favorite parts of Northanger Abbey is the Bath walk and more specifically when Elinor and Catherine have their misunderstanding of the "something dreadful" in London, lol

I can never read Norhanger Abbey without realizing how the ideal heroine and moral tale did not end with Austen's realism - just read the summaries of the novels several decades later in George Eliot's Silly Novels by Lady Novelists, which always leave me gaping. Northanger Abbey is such fun - the whole opening tells us all about what Catherine isn't, and this continues of course. The parody is broader than Austen's later work, and seems a transition from the juvenilia. I'm enjoying your videos.

I have rather split (ambigous?) thoughts of NA; in a way I find it shallow and not exciting /young girl goes to Bath, dances a little, goes on a unsatisfying cab tour with a selfrighteous man, talkes about muslin, visit a new friend, imagine things because she's in an old house, have to go home, get engaged to a kind but rather average man/ But; to me Austen makes this a complex novel, like those pictures where you either see a couple or a vase. Here is this plain heroine in this uneventful story, but Austen makes you care for Catherine and she shows how Catherines imagination goes to far, but at the same time that we'd have done the same if we were there. She discuss novels and reading them in the novel, and kindly makes fun of how novels makes Catherine suspect the worst, and at the same time make us eagerly turn pages to get the story. My feeling when reading NA is that Austen wrote this as a satire/mockery of romantic novels, as you drCox talked about, but at the same time writing so well that we have to do the same as with those more "serious" novels: read late at night, bite our nails, skip sleep, just to come to the end and wish we had not. But also the style and set up of the novel make it look like she wrote it almost by coincidence, absentminded, but of course in reality she had all the subtle layers very clear in her mind, and could shape the story as she wanted. (English' not my first language)

@mosart7025

3 жыл бұрын

I like your points. Especially the last sentence. And your English is very good!!

What do you think about the comparison between Henry Tilney and Lizzie Bennet. Some people say that if Elisabeth was a male character she would be Henry Tilney or that Henry is Elisabeth in a male version.

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

Gosh, I've never thought of this comparison before. I shall mull it over!

I am a big lover of Jane Austen on audiobook--so compatible with yarn work! I think I listen to most of the novels several times a year. But I have yet to find an audiobook version of Northanger Abbey that I can actually finish. I find those Thorpe people so detestable it makes me want to do ungentlemanly things out of anger! And very often the reader on the recording will adopt a perfectly dreadful tone of voice to indicate the characters of the Thorpes, which also annoys me greatly. Regarding having the narrative voice speak directly to the audience, one very strong example comes to mind in dear Mr. Trollope's Doctor Thorne. (Yes, a few generations later than Jane Austen, but bear with me.) He states outright that the love story will have a happy ending, but the telling of the story will be what delights the reader.

“Characters act virtuously and so are rewarded” Marquis de Sade chuckles maniacally in the background

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible" - a satire on academics (though not Dr Cox).

I remember reading Northanger Abbey for the first time without giving the romance much though, until Mr Tilney confessed how Catherine having feelings for him influenced his own interest in her, that made me pause and think back about how he enjoys teasing her for not understanding things, and how in general I never noticed any peculiar signs of attachment coming from him, which made me wonder if these two characters would end up like Mr and Mrs Bennet in the future

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

I think Catherine is actually cleverer than one might think on a first read - and she learns as the novel goes on ( not something one can really say for Mrs Bennet in _P&P_ ) . She's right to be suspicious of General Tilney, for example (in terms of discerning his fundamental unkindness). If Catherine learns to understand Henry's teasing (something Mrs Bennet has never done with Mr Bennet) then I think they could get along happily.

@effie358

3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox these are very good points, Catherine not being like Mrs. Bennet is the biggest difference I think, her ability to mature is definitely a massive difference there ahah

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

She is only seventeen after all (the same age as Marianne Dashwood)

@effie358

3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox Marianne has had quite the transformation in Sense and Sensibility. Beautifully written character. This puts me in mind, what is your opinion on Lydia? She was very young too, there is not as much hope there (or so it seems at times). Still, her young age are the one thing, that matched with her fate, really makes me wonder (and feel for her, poor soul, damning herself to such a marriage, so young), Jane Austen doesn't seem to imply that she ever matured past Mrs. Bennet's level of wisdom, does she?

@DrOctaviaCox

3 жыл бұрын

Very much not! In fact the text implies that Lydia does not change at all: "Lydia was Lydia still" (ch.51). In this, I think Austen is actually being brave - in novelistic terms - in having Lydia remain unchanged. Usually in novels of the period, women like Lydia (that is, women who have sex outside of marriage) are duly "punished" for their "sins" - usually by dying. We might think, for example, of the elder Eliza in _Sense and Sensibility_

What I expect from the novel is for Northanger Abbey to become the plot for the movie sequel to Clueless with Josh & Cher taking the place of Mr. & Mrs. Allan. "Shops must be visited Catherine. Do you think you can bear it?" 😄🛍👒💄👗👚👜 "Ow! Catherine take this pin out of my sleeve! I hope it has torn a hole already. It's totally a favorite Calvin Klein!"

Wow, Jane's "wild imagination" and "self-conscious playfulness" leading to Victorian Realism. The spectre of Jude the Obscure entered my mind here. Oof.

@DrOctaviaCox

4 жыл бұрын

Yes, the playfulness and imagination with which Austen exposed dominant novelistic clichés (especially in Northanger Abbey, but in her other novels too) contributed to the development of the novel genre into the Realism of the Victorian period, which of course led the way for writers like Hardy.

I thought the carriage ride with John Thorpe and Catherine Morland was Jane Austen’s funniest episode.

The first few chapters felt like the reel vs real trend we have today.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that “Jane Eyre” was written after “Northanger Abbey” given how much the latter seems a parody of Brontë.

Tut tut, Catherine, you not only play cricket but also baseball? (The first reference to the game in classic literature?) A romantic heroine should be able to shed tears copiously, and as has been demonstrated definitively 200 years after you were born, “There’s no crying in baseball”. This won’t do at all. kzread.info/dash/bejne/aIFs1dylg8STaNI.html

@mosart7025

3 жыл бұрын

I love A League of Their Own! And Hanks was great in it!

All about Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill

After all the learned comments by many, I have a silly question; what is 'pump room' to which reference is often made in the novel, and whether the term is still in vogue (I suspect not)? (In India, a pump room is where a pump is, or pumps are, housed. Pump that typically pumps water to the overhead water tank!)

@ShinyAvalon

8 ай бұрын

The water from the natural springs at Bath were thought to have healing qualities. As far as I can tell, the pump room was a large indoor space in which there was a pump (or pumps) to bring the spring water up for drinking. People would come and spend some time there, drinking some of the water, then excercising by walking back and forth in the room, and then sitting down to rest. I haven't been able to find any information on how large the room was, or how it was decorated. I imagine it was long in at least one direction, to allow people to walk back and forth. In my head it's a little like a large café with walking space (except that you drink spring water instead of coffee or tea). There, it's a little late, but I hope that helps. ;)

So you mention Austen's heroines "all make mistakes, all behave badly and they all behave wrong-headedly" 4:42. Would you say that about Anne in Persuasion? She might think wrongly (about herself), but I can't come up with an action or behavior that is bad, unless rejecting Wentworth 7 years before was wrong? (It is the crux of the novel after all). She doesn't come across like a perfect heroine, but is the confusion of her thoughts enough to keep her from that? I see her actions like walking a tightrope. At one end is Captain Wentworth with his back toward her. At the end she starts off from is Lady Russell, her only friend and well-wisher. On the tightrope she must navigate around people and events that don't even know she is there, let alone care if they trip her up. Gradually Wentworth starts turning around on his platform, but, watch out Anne! Here comes Cousin Elliot swooping in on his trapeze! No, he can't knock her off. And now Wentworth has started out on the rope too. He meets her and at last! She is safe! So even though she stays the course and doesn't really do anything stupid or bad, what keeps her from "perfection"?

@KasoliKnitting

2 жыл бұрын

I do have to agree with you, and add Fanny and Eleanor to the list of heroines who are extremely correct in their actions.

Remember Charlotte warned that Jane must show more interest in public. Seems Austin believes that is a good idea for young women.

Emma is my favourite of the novels. Followed by Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. I love Northanger Abbey for the Thorpes; beyond that, I don’t find it interesting. I don’t like anything - really nothing - about Mansfield Park. Don’t like any of the characters. Can’t understand why any man in his right mind would want a boring little prig like Fanny Price. Even her name is awful, given that nowadays it is used as rude slang for female anatomy (not Jane’s fault, obviously, but even so).