Northanger Abbey...finally

So I actually got to spend a ton of time on this novel this term. Dr. Rand didn't mind if I used it for more than one of my papers and since I love it oh so much, I did use it. I am going to post the opening paragraph to my paper, but the rest of it I don't want anyone to steal it! lol...like they would; haha



The Significance of Northanger Abbey

Ralph Waldo Emerson asserted that Jane Austen’s writing is “vulgar in style, sterile in invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. Her main subject is marriageableness…and suicide is more respectable,” (handout winter term 2011). The work of Jane Austen is anything but trivial and meaningless. The time period in which she lived was a time when women’s main chance of survival was based on whether or not one was married to a man who could support her. Northanger Abbey is so much more than what Emerson declares it to be. It is not a novel written about silly unimportant items of life. Northanger Abbey was an intelligent novel written in response to the conventions placed upon women in a gentleman controlled society during Austen’s lifetime that is also responsible for shaping the characters of the women who lived in that male dominated society; this is demonstrated in two of Austen’s female characters, Eleanor and Isabella. Northanger Abbey is Austen’s clever way of exposing how the male dominated society she lived in not only made them casualties of society’s ideals, but also created them.

Can I just say that Emerson's comment got me soooo riled up! In class Dr. Rand read it and my hand was up to display my objection to Emerson's unjustified comment. I didn't know then, but my argument would end up being the whole way I generated my thesis for this paper. I go on in the paper to discuss the importance of marriage in the regency era. Marriage was something of importance to women, not because they were desperate to fall in love and live happily ever after, but because it was such an important part of a woman’s survival. It was the most fun I have ever had writing a paper!

If you want to read the whole thing ( and I have to admit that it is a pretty interesting read) message me and I will email it to you :)