Northanger Abbey

             The novel Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen is by far the best gothic novel I have read in this class so far.  The story as a whole was a lot easier to read then the others and it usually kept my attention.  I actually read ahead of the reading because I was eager to finish the book.
             The protagonist in the novel is Catherine Morland and the entire novel is following her maturing as an individual.  In the beginning of the narrator calls her, "inattentive , and occasionally stupid." Throughout the novel though, Catherine learns from her mistakes and becomes a better judge of character from that.  She eventually begins to lose her naive character and matures as an individual.  I believe this is what the whole book is really about, the wedding between Catherine and Henry at the end was just a way for the author to satiate the interests of her readers.  It is a book about a young girl growing up and developing into a strong woman.
             Along with that though, the whole concept of a gothic novel was not really present in the book, it was just present in the mind of Catherine. She enjoyed reading a lot of gothic novels so the whole gothic idea was imprinted into her imagination.  Her imagination would play tricks on her and form a kind of gothic atmosphere in certain situations. An example of this is when Catherine conjured up the idea that General Tilney killed his wife.
            The climax of the novel would be,in my opinion, when General Tilney forced Catherine to leave their house abruptly because John Thorpe told him that she was poor.  Following this the rest of the novel would be the falling action where the loose ends are tied up and the problem is resolved.  As a whole I thought this book was a much easier read then the previous novels and I look forward to reading more Gothic novels.