Northanger Abbey

The entire point of writing a realistic novel was to prove that reality can be just as interesting as fantasy, and fantasy can often take away from reality. Life is not like novels of terror, because unlike novels of terror, life is unpredictable and unorderly. Life can be far richer than fiction, even when simple. We see this through the way Catherine and Henry met. In no way was Catherine and Henry’s meeting romantic, but it was feasible, authentic, and satisfying to both parties. Yes, Catherine and Henry met through a prearranged introduction, but did that make their acquaintance any less enjoyable because it was straightforward? No, it was just as interesting an experience as the typical sappy meetings that occurred in the sentimental novels. Another good example of realism was Catherine and Henry’s marriage. Their marriage rested on a …show more content…
“Jane Austen understood this appeal to vicarious emotion, and was determined to expose both its basic sentimentality and fundamental unreality” (Litz 63). Throughout the novel Austen shows the reader that real life is superior to fantasy. Austen does so by utilizing realism in every essence of the book and parody to get the reader to realize the folly of Gothic novels. “The evident purpose of Northanger Abbey is to burlesque the popular fiction of her day, to carry its convention and assumptions to an absurd extravagance” (Brown 50). Contradictory to Gothic novels, the readers are interested because the book is such an accurate representation of English society and people. The reader relates to Catherine and it is her education and entrance into the real world that interests them. Furthermore, Austen demonstrates how sentimental novels can actually have a dangerous effect on people. “She started out to expose the absurdities of Gothic fiction she ended by exposing much more” (Litz