Marriage In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, marriage plays a pivotal role in teaching individuals what courtship is ultimately about. Specifically, marriage is treated as a tool for education in women made evident in the marriages in that of Eleanor and Catherine. Through the engagement of her friend Eleanor, Catherine receives further knowledge on society and the role of marriage within it. In Northanger Abbey, marriage is not portrayed as a romantic action or as a source of a happy ending. Rather, marriage is characterized as a prize of education in young women. More specifically, through learning to navigate courtship, marriage is seen as a reward in order to climb up the social latter. When Austen writes about Eleanor’s engagement, “His unexpected accession to title and fortune had removed all his difficulties; and never had the general loved his daughter so well in all her hours of companionship, utility, and patient end” (239), she is
describing the General’s stance on Eleanor’s courtship. To the General’s pleasure, Eleanor has chosen to marry someone of class; the General is proud of her ability to marry a gentleman of title and fortune. Through the General’s pleasure, however, Austen does not reveal the passion or love between the two; instead, she describes that his merits are determined by his title. Additionally, the General further pushes the notion of marriage as a reward through his approval of Eleanor’s engagement. Essentially, Eleanor’s ability to navigate her way into marrying a wealthy noble, she is rewarded with the approval of her father. Austen utilizes marriage to reward perseverance and growth in Northanger Abbey.
To juxtapose Eleanor’s engagement, the narrator recalls the main heroine Catherine’s struggles in her own courtship: “That this was the very gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures” (239). Although Catherine’s negative experience at Northanger Abbey is more troublesome than Eleanor’s courtship, the negative is expressed by the narrator that her troubles were something essentially positive: an adventure which leads to her ultimate lesson. Through Catherine’s perseverance in the isolation of Northanger Abbey, and her ability to overcome the rigidity and extreme order of the place, she learns the differences in social spheres. Further, in her perseverance in Northanger as opposed to the freedom and lack of social regulation in Bath, and Catherine’s education in learning how to read both
spheres. Austen’s representation of marriage in Northanger Abbey reveals a greater purpose than courtship between two people. Further, it represents the ability for a woman to climb up the social latter. Austen represents that through the lessons learned by Catherine—her ability to read spheres—is what leads to her marriage to Henry. Ultimately, it is Catherine’s education in learning to read through the lens of experience, not sensation, in that she is rewarded with her marriage.