In Northanger Abbey, Austen parodies theGothic literary style that was popular during the 1790s.
Austen's juvenile writings are parodies and burlesques of popular 18th-century genres, such as the sentimental novel. She humorously demonstrates that the reversals of social convention common in sentimental novels, such as contempt for parental guidance, are ridiculously impractical; her characters "are dead to all common sense".[2] Her interest in these comedic styles, influenced in part by the writings of novelist Frances Burney and playwrights Richard Sheridan and David Garrick,[3] continued less overtly throughout her professional career.[4]
Austen's burlesque is characterized by its mocking imitation and its exaggerated, displaced emphasis.[5] For example, in Northanger Abbey, she ridicules the plot improbabilities and rigid conventions of the Gothic novel.[6] However, Austen does not categorically reject the Gothic. As Austen scholar Claudia Johnson argues, Austen pokes fun at the "stock gothic machinery—storms, cabinets, curtains, manuscripts—with blithe amusement", but she takes the threat of the tyrannical father seriously.[7] Austen uses parody and burlesque not only for comedic effect, but also, according tofeminist critics, to reveal how both sentimental and Gothic novels warped the lives of women who attempted to live out the roles depicted in them.[8] AsSusan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert explain in their seminal work The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), Austen makes fun of "such novelistic clichés as love at first sight, the primacy of passion over all other emotions and/or duties, the chivalric exploits of the hero, the vulnerable sensitivity of the heroine, the lovers' proclaimed indifference to financial considerations, and the cruel crudity of parents".[9]
