Northanger Abbey Lesson Plan

Notice Catherine’s quickness, when she finds herself in situations where she doesn’t know any better, to doubt herself and trust that another person knows more. Why do you think she acts this way? How might this compare to what a young man in her position might do?

Students might first point to some specific examples of this self-doubt, including when she sees Miss Tilney leave the house after the servant informed Catherine she wasn’t home (“She could almost be angry herself at such angry incivility; but she checked the resentful sensation; she remembered her own ignorance. She knew not how such an offence as her’s might be classed by the laws of worldly politeness…”...