The Justification of General Tilney's Role as a Gothic Villain Leia Azizuddin College

Although previously reprimanded by Henry for her overactive imagination, Catherine’s initial judgment of the General having the “air and attitude of a Montoni” proves to be true when she is ejected from Northanger Abbey. Montoni is the villain of Ann Radcliffe’s ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, a Gothic novel of which Catherine is enthralled by and spends the majority of the novel fantasizing about. Despite correctly recognizing parallels between the General and Montoni, Catherine is oblivious to the reasons behind their similarity as she does not realize that like Montoni with Emily, the General is after Catherine’s apparent fortune.

Jane Austen blends social issues and gothic scenarios through the depiction of Catherine’s exile from Northanger. While the forcing of Catherine to travel “a journey of seventy miles…. alone, unattended” contains an element of danger often found in Gothic novels, the General’s motive behind his treatment of Catherine is inherently a common issue of the Regency English society. Evident from the topic of marriage being the main theme of all of Austen’s novels, a primary aim of middle and upper-class families was to ensure that their children married either appropriately or advantageously. In this case,...