Wallace’s analysis of Northanger Abbey focuses on the reader’s relationships with the narrator and the author. To highlight this relationship, Wallace chooses to concentrate on the character of Henry Tilney. More specifically, Wallace shows how Henry Tilney’s satire relies on reductive generalizations of other characters, particularly female ones. Wallace then connects this trait of Henry’s to Austen’s tendency to reductively generalize her readers and manipulate her reader into becoming an active participant in the story. However, Wallace’s analysis is muddied by her propensity to similarly reductively and harshly judge Austen’s readers who read the text differently than she did. Additionally, Wallace confuses her analytical credibility by
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While reviewing his “reductive and inaccurate description” of these journals, Wallace finds a “generalization quite at odds” with the reality of eighteenth-century ladies’ journals, which included works by such influential writers as Fanny Burney and Hester Thrale (Wallace 265). Consequently, by employing reductive language to characterize ladies’ journals, Henry transitively reduces and generalizes the women who write for them. Through analyzing Henry’s language, Wallace reveals how Henry’s satire only leads him to arrive at trite conclusions, like that women and men are comparably skilled in matters involving taste (Austen 27). Another example of Henry reductively analyzing a situation involving women is when he explains Isabella’s behavior towards Captain Tilney to Catherine. In this passage, Henry judges that neglecting to share his true opinion with Catherine will ease her anxiety and that she should not to fully understand a situation that involves both her closest friend and her brother. According to Wallace, Henry is completely aware of the repercussions of what he shares with Catherine, obliging, “but not with the truth or even
While reviewing his “reductive and inaccurate description” of these journals, Wallace finds a “generalization quite at odds” with the reality of eighteenth-century ladies’ journals, which included works by such influential writers as Fanny Burney and Hester Thrale (Wallace 265). Consequently, by employing reductive language to characterize ladies’ journals, Henry transitively reduces and generalizes the women who write for them. Through analyzing Henry’s language, Wallace reveals how Henry’s satire only leads him to arrive at trite conclusions, like that women and men are comparably skilled in matters involving taste (Austen 27). Another example of Henry reductively analyzing a situation involving women is when he explains Isabella’s behavior towards Captain Tilney to Catherine. In this passage, Henry judges that neglecting to share his true opinion with Catherine will ease her anxiety and that she should not to fully understand a situation that involves both her closest friend and her brother. According to Wallace, Henry is completely aware of the repercussions of what he shares with Catherine, obliging, “but not with the truth or even