Moral-Philosophical Approach

 Analysis in Jane Austen`s Northanger Abbey    

 Literature can`t be written without the intervention of author`s intention of teaching morality and to probe philosophical issue if the approach is not about morality and philosophy. In the novel, Northanger Abbey the approach about moral-philosophical unlocked minds on how the author wrote the story by the influence of reading Gothic novels affecting the imagination of Catherine, the main character, to how reality plays. In the beginning of the story, the portrayal of Catherine as stubborn, stupid, easy go lucky and playful young girl at ten changed when she was at fifteen to seventeen. She decided to train herself for heroine so she read works and became hooked in Gothic novels in which later in the novel inferred his ideas about the Northanger Abbey.

      The place where the Tilney`s family reside is on Northanger Abbey. Before Catherine able to visit the place, Henry Tilney, the man whom she met that became her husband in the end, arouse the mind of her to imagine Northanger Abbey`s suspense, security and disappointment. For instance on page 147,3^rd sentences of the book, “With this parting cordial she curtsey's off- you listen to the sound of her receding footsteps as long as the last echo can reach you, you discover, with increased alarm, that it has no lock.” Those words terrified Catherine and made herself think of a book the same to what he told her, but since she was pictured as maturing young lady she said to him that it cannot really happen to her.

     

      However, curiosity and impact of Gothic novels managed her to open a large high chest, standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fire-place and in the cabinet where old manuscript long asleep. Her morality to think of what was right and proper eluded her philosophy to be a heroine on her own. In the reason, her suspect of a crime made by General Tilney because of the things she found out gave her an idea of solving the issue by telling everything to Henry. As expected, blood is thicker than water, Henry could not afford to believe in all the proposed examination of the mysterious apartments made by Catherine so he told what Catherine accused to his father. General Tilney in result talked to Catherine asking her to go back to Fullerton, Catherine`s village, because of not only of her suspicion but also of John Thorpe`s statement that her family was poor and that she only wants grandeur of life with Henry.

Love is the loudest voice to a person with a sincere heart and dignified choice. Meaning here, Henry`s love for Catherine did not stop him even he had the hard choice of choosing his father`s advised or to obey his heart`s wants. The novel teaches us the morality and philosophical issues regarding insinuation of parental tyranny, filial disobedience, ladies maturity and societal realism.