Social aspects in Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey summary

A summary of the novel provides solid training for teachers and students. Use of the highlights of each chapter, it is easier for students to discuss the novel and teachers to provide instruction. The executive summary can be used as is, or extrapolated by teachers or students who read the novel. Northanger Abbey is an amusing parody of gothic novels, with their mysterious castles and abbeys, gloomy villains, incredibly accomplished heroines, sublime landscapes, and supernatural claptrap. (Parkes P.10) Austen's satire is not, however, pointed only at such novels; the exaggerated romantic sensibility of the gothic enthusiast is also a target. Northanger Abbey is a comic study of the ironic discrepancies between the prosaic world in which Catherine lives and the fantastic shapes that her imagination, fed by gothic novels, gives to that world. Throughout the novel, the author holds up the contrast between the heroine's real situation and the gothic world she fantasizes. (Kolakowski P.5)

Marxism and Northanger Abbey

A sociological approach to literature that view works of literature and art as a product of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they formed. In Marxist ideology, which are often classified as a world view (as the Victorian era) is actually the joints of the ruling class. Marxism in general, focuses on the confrontation between the dominant and suppressed classes at any age and may also promote the art of imitating what is often called an "objective" reality. Contemporary Marxism is much broader in scope and art at the same time seen as self-reflective and the time it occurred. (Jon P.13) Northanger Abbey is a novel of initiation; its heroine ironically discovers in the world not a new freedom, but a new set of restrictions. Once undeceived of her romantic illusions of escape, she is returned with a vengeance to the world as it is, small but decent. As an early novel, Northanger Abbey points the way to Austen's mature novels, in which the focus will be on heroines who are constrained to deal with life within defined limitations. (Dahrendorf P.12)

Marxist criticism makes it difficult to reach an agreement with his way of saying that he believes that women are almost insignificant in society. In the critical Marxist approach explains how the character is objective and background affects the whole perspective of the character. Through the use of these reviews ...