It doesn't matter what you pay, it's not an end, but work is the most important thing. You see, even my eldest son, Flederick, has his own career, although he may inherit a considerable legacy in this county like any non-public official.
His daughter married a rich and powerful man, which greatly increased his self-esteem. In heaven, when he first called his daughter Eleanor "Viscount", he liked her from the bottom of his heart and accompanied her in the past years. Serving him, obeying and loving her are completely different things. It is also for this reason that he is interested in his son Henry? 9? Sonny was very angry. He wanted to marry Catherine, the daughter of a "poor" family, but at Eleanor's request, he was allowed to go home and live, although he still said, "If he likes it, let him be a big fool!" What Thorpe made up was inherited by a young man; In other words, this property is open to the public. Whoever is greedy can speculate on land, and as long as he has money, he can buy it. And Catherine is not the daughter of a "poor man". Her dowry is 3,000 pounds (Catherine's father promised her brothers James and Isabella? 9? Miss Thorpe will get married in three years and get a priest position with an annual salary of 400 pounds; At that time, a working people's family only needed one twentieth of 400 pounds to make a living, which shows the number of dowry of 3 thousand pounds. The hero and heroine of northanger abbey finally got married on the last page of the novel: "The church bell rang and everyone laughed." This is the pride and victory of Henry and Catherine; Because Henry is sincere about love:
In such a matter, his anger (that is, the general) will shock Henry, but it will not scare him, because Henry believes that his purpose is just, so he will stick to his own purpose. He felt that he must be responsible for Catherine not only emotionally but also morally. Besides, he believes that the heart that his father ordered him to win now belongs to him. Therefore, withdrawing his acquiescence by despicable means and ordering him to change his mind in a rage for no reason can not shake his loyalty or affect his determination. (Chapter 30)
However, without the guarantee of economic conditions, the general will not agree, and without the general's consent, although Mr. Moran has a good heart, as a priest, he must also adhere to the principle of dealing with people. In this case, he won't encourage their marriage. Henry and Catherine can only miss each other. So we have to answer the last sentence in Austin's book: Do we advocate autocratic parents or do we advocate that children don't have to obey their parents' orders? There were conditions at that time.
Northanger abbey is a literary novel. In the first chapter, many poems of poets and playwrights are quoted, including two plays by Shakespeare. The fifth and fourteenth chapters of the book also discuss the status of the novel in a lot of space. These are all Gothic (horror) novels that were very popular at that time. The title of "northanger abbey" is similar to that of a Gothic novel, and the second half of the novel is also in the residence of Sonny's family, which used to be a convent. The plot of the novel also deepens step by step as the heroine naively seeks the excitement in real life after reading the Gothic novel. However, Austin's northanger abbey is a realistic work which is completely different from Gothic novels. In the fifth chapter, the author laments that the value of the novel has been underestimated, and points out that:
..... It seems that there is almost a universal desire to weaken the novelist's ability, underestimate the novelist's labor and despise his creative achievements, which only reflect his spirit, intelligence and interest. ..... is just a work that shows the great power of thought, a work that conveys the most thorough understanding of human nature to the world in the most appropriate language, describes the various manifestations of human nature in the most appropriate way, and conveys the most vivid wisdom and humor. Austin spoke highly of English realistic novels since Defoe in the18th century, but made profound criticism on those magazines including the famous spectator:
Articles in this journal often state absurd things, embarrassing characters and topics that the living no longer care about; And language is often so rough that people will not have a good view of the era of tolerating it.
As far as novels are concerned, those Gothic novels have their own defects, that is, they are far from reality. She wrote in chapter 25:
Although all Mrs Radcliffe's works, even those of all her imitators, are fascinating, humanity, at least the humanity shown by the residents of counties in central England, may not be found in these works.
So all the people in northanger abbey are real people, and the heroine Catherine is not a legendary figure. She broke the illusion in real life and understood the truth of life. She spent three months in Bath and northanger abbey, which was more than her 17 years of education. Isabella, her first friend in Bath, is a hypocrite. What she says often doesn't mean what she thinks. The purpose of her approaching Catherine is to talk to James? 9? Moran is engaged. After being engaged to James and getting his father's consent, she married Flederick? 9? Sonny (Captain Sonny) flirts, because Sonny's family is rich, but her goal has not been achieved, so she turns to get back together with James with Catherine's help. Finally, even Catherine, who read her letter, was disgusted with her behavior, not to mention mending her love with James, because it was not love. The second person who introduced Catherine to the real world was John? 9? 9 Thorpe. This bookworm of Oxford University only pursues the surface of things. He can make up anything and appear arrogant and rich in front of others. The biggest lie is to show that the family he pursues is rich, saying that she is the heiress of fullerton real estate, as if the person he pursues is rich. However, once the pursuit of Catherine failed, she turned to slander her family as a poor family. The consequence of this second lie is that Admiral Sonny kicked Catherine out of the house. Catherine doesn't know these things, but she has never been cheated by Thorpe. This is a very lovely place of her personality. Although Admiral Sonny was born in a noble family, he was actually a stupid man, or John wouldn't have killed him twice? 9? Thorpe was cheated, mainly because he only pursues money, status and real estate, and it is inevitable that what kind of pursuit will make what kind of person. Catherine has always kept him at a distance, and always suspected that he was the murderer of his wife, although she was influenced by too many Gothic novels. This is another lovely feature of Catherine's personality. Because of these cuteness, she won Henry? 9? Sonny's sincere love and his sister Eleanor? 9? Sonny's sincere help.
Mrs Allen is also an interesting person. She is pampered and only cares about clothes, so she is an empty-minded and independent person. In those days in Bath, she cared more about Bath's fashionable clothes than Catherine did. Mrs Moran is another character. Although she can take out McKenzie's Mirror magazine article to comfort Catherine, her views on real life are very limited. Catherine's eldest sister Sarah, although she only heard a few words, is a very smart and clear-headed person. It is conceivable that she is a very insightful girl. As for Henry, it was with his help that Catherine learned a lot from life. There is no need to say more about him here. The characters in Austin's novels are very personal and unforgettable, because we can meet such people around us. This is the charm of Austen's novels.
The language of Austin's works is a model of pure English. This has something to do with her family environment. She has read widely since she was a child.
In the fifth chapter, when talking about novels, she pointed out that novels are "works that express the great power of thought" and "works that convey the most thorough understanding of human nature to the world with the most appropriate language, make the most appropriate description of various manifestations of human nature, and convey the most vivid wisdom and humor".
The Narrative Strategy of northanger abbey
Northanger abbey is different from Austen's other five novels. It adopts an open narrator and an exposed author-style narrative voice, which shows the authority of the author. Is it Jane? 6? 1 the first novel Austin planned to publish was finalized around 1797, that is, when Austin was about 22 years old. In this novel, the author's writing style has taken shape, that is, taking "three or four households in one village" as the living background, telling a wedding story with ironic brushstrokes.
Generally speaking, the narrative strategy of northanger abbey has the following characteristics: based on an appropriate point of view, through the author's intervention characterized by ironic rhetoric, he fully declares his beliefs and values to the readers and establishes a positive communication relationship between the author and the readers.
In northanger abbey, Austen chooses to describe it mainly from Catherine's perspective. The advantage of this choice is that because the heroine (Catherine) is a blind lover of Gothic novels and a kind-hearted and extremely simple and independent girl, in her view, many absurd things have become reasonable and tolerable, and the story has developed smoothly and some plots have happened smoothly. In this way, cleverly brought it. For example:
"'I dare say that even if I touch it with my hands, I can shake it into pieces. I've never seen anything so far! ..... even if you give me fifty thousand pounds to walk two miles in it, I won't do it. "
Oh, my god Catherine was startled and shouted, "Then let's go back." . ..... Mr Thorpe. Stop and talk to my brother. Tell him it's too dangerous '
Danger! Oh, my God! ..... As long as you can control it, the carriage is safe. If this kind of guy falls into the hands of capable people, he can be used for more than twenty years even if he is in rags. ..... whoever gives me five pounds, I will drive it back to York, and I promise not to lose a nail. " "
Vanity and greed talk about exaggerated facts, which is so naked and ridiculous to us onlookers-everyone knows that if a carriage is as fragile as Thorpe said, then they must have been fragmented by now; If anyone's driving skills are high enough to drive such a carriage, he must not be the son of God, he is a God. But how simple Catherine is, she tolerates these hypocrisy and exaggeration, and even doesn't know that they are a little hypocritical and exaggerated, but keeps blaming herself for being too ignorant to understand these strange mysteries. Such contradictory facts will become more interesting under Catherine's reaction and thinking, and her sincerity will further set off the hypocrisy of her companions.
Choosing Catherine as the main point of view also makes the climax of the novel more real and exciting: under the influence of Gothic novels, the owner of northanger abbey, General Seni, mistakenly thinks that his wife is imprisoned in a secret room, so what she sees and hears in the process of searching for "secrets" is so suspicious and horrible. At this time, the viewpoint of the novel does not flow to the author's omniscient viewpoint, but only focuses on the heroine's perspective and describes what she sees and thinks. On the one hand, it shows how confusing Gothic novels are and to what extent they confuse readers' minds.
The basic idea of northanger abbey is Catherine, however, it is also flexible-it takes place between the heroine and the author. This naturally leads to the distance between the author and the characters-this distance is deliberately created by the author to make readers think, so that readers and works will have a distance. That is to say, for readers, every novel has two kinds of distances, one is the external distance corresponding to the image system of the novel, and the other is the internal distance corresponding to the meaning world of the novel. The former involves the sensibility in the form of the novel, while the latter involves the understandability in the sense of the novel. The effective external distance of [3] 132 is realized by narrative sound. In northanger abbey, the narrator can be understood as the equivalent author.
As mentioned above, many modern critics advocate the author's "retirement", without comment or intervention. However, in northanger abbey, Austen effectively expresses the theme through the exposed narrative voice of the author, especially in revealing how the Gothic novel is influenced and demagogues people.
There are more than twenty obvious "interventions" by the author in northanger abbey. The author's voice appears so frequently that it almost never makes us forget her existence, which has its own significance. An important theme of northanger abbey is to expose the unreality of Gothic novels, and the intended readers are those who are stunned by Gothic novels. Therefore, the author chooses to imitate the plot of Gothic novels as the irony in content. Since it imitates the Gothic plot, there must be some horror, suspense, romance and other events that fascinate readers. Considering that the readers at that time were influenced by Gothic novels and might lack the ability of conscious and rational thinking and analysis, it is obviously a feasible strategy for the author to intervene in the works at the right time.
Before the story begins, the author announces a fact to the readers that Catherine is definitely not a perfect and lovely person, and there is nothing outstanding in both appearance and personality. Austin used a whole chapter to introduce Catherine's background, so detailed, so clear, so sure, how did she consider such an arrangement?
"No one thought that she was destined to be the heroine ..."
This sentence shows the subtext of this "narrator's intervention"-Catherine comes from the real world, and she is not the heroine with self-perfection and legendary background in traditional novels. Please don't have any illusions about her! In this way, readers who have been edified by pseudo-romanticism are poured cold water before they begin to have unfounded romantic fantasies about a novel.
In the next chapter, Catherine will leave home for Bath. Austin described some details of the heroine's farewell to her family, and then used this topic to play:
"Moran family calmly and moderately handled all matters related to this important trip. This attitude is in line with the common feeling in daily life. .....
In such a bleak situation, Catherine bid farewell to her family and embarked on a journey. The journey was smooth and safe. I didn't meet a robber, a storm, or a hero because of a rollover. Only once did Mrs Allen worry that she would leave her clogs in the hotel. Later, fortunately, it was just a false alarm. Besides, nothing terrible happened again. "
All the plots related to the plot of the novel in the minds of emotional readers are mentioned by the author from the side, such as sad and heartbreaking cries and unexpected storms on the road. Instead, it was a false alarm of throwing clogs! It is obvious that the author is "pretending to be poor" by inserting this passage, and his speech is full of irony. It is impossible for readers not to know such clear chariots and horses. The replacement of clogs and romance makes reality and fantasy conflict at once and present them to readers together, causing contrast and reflection. Only after a while, the author "broke in" again:
"Now it's time to introduce Mrs. Allen, so that readers can judge how her behavior will contribute to all kinds of troubles in this book in the future, and how she may put poor Catherine in an awkward position. Is it because she is reckless, vulgar or jealous, or because she stole Catherine's letter, slandered her reputation and even kicked her out? "
In fact, Mrs Allen had nothing to do with what happened to Catherine later. The author's description of Mrs. Allen below only shows that Mrs. Allen is really an ordinary woman. The irony of this passage is more obvious than the previous quotation, and the heroine in the gothic novel is often abandoned. I'm afraid this grandiose irony is a little unacceptable to readers. Austin is challenging her readers, but will readers stop watching northanger abbey because of this? Actually, it's just the opposite. Everyone has a rebellious attitude and a sense of maintaining their dignity. How can they get Austin to publicly reveal his inner thoughts and then publicly satirize them? The only way to resist is to continue reading and prove that you are a rational reader.
But, Jane? 6? 1 Austin has advanced and retreated. The involvement of criticism in the second half of the novel is reduced, and the plot of the novel gradually develops to a climax. After being invited to live in ancient northanger abbey, Catherine thought for many times that she had discovered terrible plots and secrets, and even suspected that Sonny's father had killed his wife or confined her. After Sonny knew this absurd idea, she gave Catherine a profound education, and Catherine also learned the "truth" of her mother's death from Sonny's mouth-illness. The heroine was completely freed from the unrealistic world from now on. Throughout the climax, Austin did not stand up and forcibly "intervene" because it was unnecessary. If readers have not been awakened by her frequent "intervention", at least they have formed a little consciousness, then their fantasies will be punctured by the coldest facts, and they will wake up with Catherine.
It makes sense for Austin to arrange her narrator's intervention so unevenly. If there are too many comments, the reader's acceptance process will become passive and thus lose interest in reading; If there is no "intervention" or "intervention" at all, it is easy for readers to fall into unrealistic imagination and cannot reflect.
This narrative strategy of scientific dialectics is similar to Brecht's drama theory in the 20th century. He opposes emotional singing as the only goal of an actor's performance. Traditional drama aims at capturing the audience's feelings, mobilizing various artistic means to introduce the audience into the drama situation, entering a state of delirium and infatuation, thus losing the ability to judge and understand the drama independently. Therefore, Brecht strongly opposed to playing with the audience's feelings. He asked the audience to remain sober and rational while suffering from emotional contagion, and to understand the ideological significance of the play with a cool head. He opposes that actors forget themselves when they enter the role, and even more opposes that audiences forget themselves when they enter the role. To this end, he created a variety of "alienation" (also known as "defamiliarization") techniques to achieve his goal. For example, hanging a "quotation board" on the stage directly reminds the audience of the ideological content of a scene being played; Or suddenly add a "aria" that has nothing to do with the plot during the development of the plot, directly reminding the audience what the internal meaning of the event is, so as to stimulate the audience's reason; Or the author talks to the audience directly. And so on.
Like Brecht's plays, the author of northanger abbey is both a screenwriter and a director, and she is responsible for guiding the readers. Austin also hopes that readers can distinguish between true and false, look at books with realistic criticism, not be influenced by the crazy plots in Gothic novels and sentimental novels, and know how to pull away and think independently. For this reason, Austen's intervention with such a "rude" narrator leads to: the protagonist of the novel has a certain distance from the author-Catherine appeared as an "ugly duckling" from the beginning, and she is by no means a model of Austen's ideal woman; The characters and plots of the novel are at a certain distance from the readers-the author pretends that the story is like a Gothic novel, including the heroine's journey away from home, frequent dances and strange ancient buildings. However, when readers have the opportunity to romanticize the plot, they will step forward to break the absurdity and shut the reader out of delusion. This is the "alienation effect", because "distance produces beauty" makes aesthetics possible. Only the beauty here is the beauty of the real world. The task of "alienation effect" is "to show the accustomed and unchanging phenomenon as abnormal, unexpected and changeable, so as to surprise the audience and inspire the audience to understand the essence through the phenomenon, and then produce the desire to transform the world." [4] What about northanger abbey, where Catherine missed meeting Henry? 6? 1 Sonny's brother and sister felt uneasy after dating, and Austin joked that Catherine didn't sleep well that night:
"Now, I should send my heroine to bed, tossing and turning, crying sadly, because most real heroines deserve it. If she can have a good sleep within three months, she will feel very lucky. "
This is a veritable "episode" that has nothing to do with the plot. Austin wrote it to provide readers with a service called "reminder". It is common that the heroine's love encounters setbacks and she can't sleep. Austin should satirize this "accustomed and unchanging phenomenon" and turn it into "abnormal, unexpected and changeable". Because in traditional novels, the heroine always shows excessive grief after encountering setbacks, so as to infect readers. Austen dislikes this exaggeration, so she should remind readers. Through this kind of discourse with "estrangement effect", readers can instantly pull away from the plot and realize that they are only "reading" a novel, rather than experiencing its contents personally. At this time, his aesthetic speculation can gallop freely between the text and real life. Once the reader's thinking is divorced from the plot, he can calmly instill his thoughts into the reader without risking the reader's incomplete understanding of the plot or misunderstanding the author's intention.
As a novelist with a desire to complain about the real world, Austin successfully used flexible and appropriate views of characters and moderate intervention to guide readers to form independent, calm and critical thinking about Gothic novels. The humor in the comment intervention makes the original mean "sarcastic remarks" extremely cute, which is bound to bring readers pleasure in reading and cover up the abrupt interruption of the plot, just like the lubricant in the engine.