Upon the commencement of Northanger Abbey, I had a sense of déjà vu, followed promptly by a sense of horror. The first chapter of this book was slightly reminiscent of Wieland, which in hindsight, makes sense since they were only published 20 years apart from each other. The long winded description of one character caused me to die a little bit on the inside. We soon find out that Austen only used this as a way to force the reader into the mold of her main character, and she quickly demonstrates that the rest of the characters will be heavily characterized by their witty dialogue or their handling of social situations, the thing that made her writing so famous. She uses two well off families with different traits to explore the differences in aristocracy, and uses Catherine as a vehicle for her readers to explore these families. This works well since our heroine is relatively normal person and average in most ways.
The bottom line is that at first I thought we would be reading a drawn out wielandesque study in colonial insanity, but now it may just be a social commentary of the upper classes.
Agree,Agree,Agree! when i started reading this story, it felt as if i too were reading wieland all over again due to the parallels between the two. as you pointed out it may be due to fact that they both were published relatively close to each other. one part that stuck out specifically to me is the part where she is in the theater and sees mr. Tilney. the reason that this stuck out to me is because she is having this inner dialogue with herself where we see that she wants to run to him and explain why she didnt go with him on their walk, but she claims that she can't due to the fact that women are not supposed to do things like that. (pg72-73). after reading this i immediately thought back to wieland where Clara wieland wants to tell Pleyel how she really feels about him after he forms the wrong impression of her because of Carwin's trickery, but she simply wont allow herself to do it because of similar reasons of feminine virtue or gender roles. i also agree with the viewing this as a social commentary because of the monotonous and drawn out accounts of the numerous balls, plays, etc...that these two families attend while in bath. the way in which Catharine tells the story made me feel as if she wasnt actually present, but kind of observing from above or at a distance. it may just be the way that the txt is written or something though.
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