Northanger Abbey as a Precursor to Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is frequently described as a novel about reading—reading novels and reading people—while Pride and Prejudice is said to be a story about love, about two people overcoming their own pride and prejudices to realize their feelings for each other. If Pride and Prejudice is indeed about how two stubborn youth have misjudged each other, then why is it that this novel is so infrequently viewed to be connected to Austen’s original novel about misjudgment and reading one’s fellows, Northanger Abbey? As one of Austen’s first novels, Northanger Abbey is often viewed as a “prototype” to her later novels, but it is most often compared to Persuasion (Brown 50). However, if read discerningly, one can see in Pride and Prejudice many echoes of situations and events first presented in Northanger Abbey.
From the very onset of each book, the reader will notice a similarity: Austen’s penchant for interesting and entertaining first lines. Northanger Abbey begins with the words, “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine” (Northanger 5). By saying that nobody would have supposed Catherine to be a heroine, Austen is suggesting to the reader that a heroine is indeed what Catherine will become. This line also presents the first bit of the irony that underlies the entire novel. Similarly, in Pride and Prejudice, Austen begins with the famous line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Pride 1). This line is also ironic, and the themes if irony and marriage set out by it continue to reverberate throughout the entire novel (Brown 26). Through the similar openings, it is immediately apparent that there is a relationship between Austen’s two novels.
At the beginning of Northanger Abbey, Austen makes it clear to the reader that Catherine Morland is no typical heroine- “the Morlands … were in general very plain, and
From the very onset of each book, the reader will notice a similarity: Austen’s penchant for interesting and entertaining first lines. Northanger Abbey begins with the words, “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine” (Northanger 5). By saying that nobody would have supposed Catherine to be a heroine, Austen is suggesting to the reader that a heroine is indeed what Catherine will become. This line also presents the first bit of the irony that underlies the entire novel. Similarly, in Pride and Prejudice, Austen begins with the famous line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Pride 1). This line is also ironic, and the themes if irony and marriage set out by it continue to reverberate throughout the entire novel (Brown 26). Through the similar openings, it is immediately apparent that there is a relationship between Austen’s two novels.
At the beginning of Northanger Abbey, Austen makes it clear to the reader that Catherine Morland is no typical heroine- “the Morlands … were in general very plain, and
Cited: Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1956. Berger, Ami. “The Female Gothic.” The Gothic: Materials For Study. The University of Virginia. 9 December 2005 <http://www.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/Group/ ami.intro.html>. Brown, Julia Prewitt. Jane Austen’s Novels- Social Change and Literary Form. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979. Hansen, Serena. “Rhetorical Dynamics in Jane Austen 's Treatment of Marriage Proposals.” Persuasions On-line. Summer 2000. Jane Austen Society of North America. 3 December 2005 < http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/ on-line/vol21no2/hansen.html>. Wright, Andrew H.. Jane Austen’s Novels- A Study in Structure. Harmondsworth: Peregrine Books, 1962.