Editing Northanger Abbey (section)

=== Life lived as in a Gothic novel ===
By creating a heroine who is an ordinary girl,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Glock |first=Waldo S. |date=1978 |title=Catherine Morland's Gothic Delusions: A Defense of Northanger Abbey |journal=Rocky Mountain Review |volume=32 |issue=1 |page=36 }}</ref> Austen is upending the traditional role of Gothic heroines.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Glock |first=Waldo S. |date=1978 |title=Catherine Morland's Gothic Delusions: A Defense of Northanger Abbey |journal=Rocky Mountain Review |volume=32 |issue=1 |page=37 }}</ref> The way for Catherine to find happiness in her life is by having an ordinary one, not one full of Gothic fantasy.<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal |last=Glock |first=Waldo S. |date=1978 |title=Catherine Morland's Gothic Delusions: A Defense of Northanger Abbey |journal=Rocky Mountain Review |volume=32 |issue=1 |page=38 }}</ref> When Catherine fears that General Tilney murdered his wife, these ideas stem from her knowledge of Gothic novels.<ref name=":3">Irvine, Robert ''Jane Austen'', London: Routledge, 2005 p. 48.</ref> Her fears of fantastical evil prove to be false, but the book ends with her discovery of a realistic evil surrounding economic propositions.<ref name=":8" /> Once Catherine faces reality, she is able to find happiness.<ref name=":9" /> When General Tilney kicks Catherine out of the abbey, she leaves easily, acting inwardly rather than outwardly.<ref name=":8" /> Waldo S. Glock argues that this is a display of her genuineness instead of sentimentality.<ref name=":8" /> Catherine's internal display of sadness showcases how she is not a typical Gothic heroine.<ref name=":8" /> To contrast her, Isabella Thorpe acts more accurately as a Gothic heroine.<ref name=":8" /> Because of her insincerity, Isabella is more at danger to Gothic disillusionment and sentimental notions.<ref name=":8" />

Austen uses elements of Gothic fiction as a tool to help showcase portions of the marriage plot.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Baudot |first=Laura Jeanne |date=2011 |title='Nothing Really in It': Gothic Interiors and the Externals of the Courtship Plot in Northanger Abbey |journal=Eighteenth-Century Fiction |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=341 |doi=10.3138/ecf.24.2.325 }}</ref> This is evident with the use of the cabinet at the abbey.<ref name=":12" /> When Henry comes up with a Gothic story to tease Catherine, he makes a joke about the narrator overlooking a cabinet that is crucial to the made-up story as a way to create tension.<ref name=":12" /> The act of overlooking a key detail is similar to the manner that marriage plots conceal information to build suspense.<ref name=":12" /> Gothic fiction also helps reveal negative aspects of marriage that are not as obvious in a traditional courtship plot.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Baudot |first=Laura Jeanne |date=2011 |title='Nothing Really in It': Gothic Interiors and the Externals of the Courtship Plot in Northanger Abbey |journal=Eighteenth-Century Fiction |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=342 |doi=10.3138/ecf.24.2.325 }}</ref>

''Northanger Abbey'' is a [[parody]] of Gothic fiction.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last=Baudot |first=Laura Jeanne |date=2011 |title="Nothing Really in It": Gothic Interiors and the Externals of the Courtship Plot in Northanger Abbey |journal=Eighteenth-Century Fiction |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=343 |doi=10.3138/ecf.24.2.325 }}</ref> One way that Austen achieves this is through the washing bill that Catherine finds in the abbey.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last=Baudot |first=Laura Jeanne |date=2011 |title='Nothing Really in It': Gothic Interiors and the Externals of the Courtship Plot in Northanger Abbey |journal=Eighteenth-Century Fiction |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=338 |doi=10.3138/ecf.24.2.325 }}</ref> Catherine thinks that there is an elaborate story behind the washing bills, but it leads to no big discovery.<ref name=":11" /> Austen reverses the expectation in Gothic fiction for there to be some sort of depth to a story with the washing bills.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Baudot |first=Laura Jeanne |date=2011 |title='Nothing Really in It': Gothic Interiors and the Externals of the Courtship Plot in Northanger Abbey |journal=Eighteenth-Century Plot |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=339 |via=Project Muse}}</ref> It also showcases Catherine as a victim of the economy for believing that the washing bill contained a larger story than it actually did.<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal |last=Zlotnick |first=Susan |date=2009 |title=From Involuntary Object to Voluntary Spy: Female Agency, Novels, and the Marketplace in Northanger Abbey |journal=Studies in the Novel |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=277–292 |doi=10.1353/sdn.0.0068 }}</ref> Susan Zlotnick highlights that it is common for Gothic novels to portray women as victims to the economy.<ref name=":13" /> Another way that Austen satirizes Gothic fiction is through the cabinet that Catherine finds the washing bills in.<ref name=":10" /> The cabinet is from Japan which plays on the Gothic idea of exoticism.<ref name=":10" /> It removes the exaggerated exotic feature to the scope of the room instead.<ref name=":10" /> In contrast, Robert Irvine, a British critic, argues that the interpretation of the novel as a complete satire of the Gothic genre is problematic even though parts of the book do satirize the Gothic novels popular in the 18th century.<ref name="Irvine, Robert page 432">Irvine, Robert ''Jane Austen'', London: Routledge, 2005 p. 43.</ref> ''Northanger Abbey'' makes fun of the silliness of Gothic fiction but also praises it and depends on it to tell the story.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite journal |last=Levine |first=George |date=1975 |title=Translating the Monstrous: Northanger Abbey |journal=Nineteenth-Century Fiction |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=341–343, 345 |doi=10.2307/2933073 |jstor=2933073 }}</ref>