Abstract
These excerpts are both crucial moments for the respective protagonists of the novels, since they narrate the first time they meet their love interest: Catherine meats Mr. Tilney in Northanger Abbey, and Henry James's Catherine meets Mr. Townsend in Washington Square. Besides, they both meet them at social events, and start with a conversation after or interspersed with dances. However, while these situations seem very much alike, they actually differ in the form the conversation takes.
Extract
[...] This difference reveals a disparity between the two women's personalities: Jane Austen's Catherine is witty and talkative, while Henry James's Catherine is quiet and thoughtful. But despite these differences, the man is still the one who is leading the conversation in Jane Austen's excerpt. Indeed, Catherine's sentences are shorter and less frequent. Besides, Mr. Tilney explicitly takes control of the situation, since he is the one who decides what he is going to ask Catherine, and then he imagines what the young woman might write about him. [...]
[...] Townsend appears to be playing a role, to embrace this stereotyped attitude seen in novels. Indeed, the main part of Catherine and Mr. Tilney's dialogue is dedicated to a fake conversation between two people meeting each other for the first time, according to the social conventions of their society. Everything in the man's tone and attitude reveals that this is fake and conventional: "forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice", "with affected astonishment", "Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." This staged dialogue is then followed by a more authentic one, where the characters can show their wit and their real personality. [...]
[...] Moreover, the authors do not limit themselves to this presentation of social conventions through the male character; they also seem to be mocking the conventional social life that these characters lead. Indeed, when Catherine answers to Mr. Tilney's conventional questions, she says that she did these activities on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. These sentences are repeated mechanically, and it produces a comical effect: Catherine seems to follow a very controlled rhythm of one activity per day. In only three days, she did the most conventional things to do in Bath - that is why Mr. [...]
[...] Northanger Abbey, Chapter 3 - Jane Austen (1817); Washington Square, Chapter 4 - Henry James (1880) - How are the social relationships and contexts of the time described in each novel? The texts that will be studied in this dissertation are extracts from two novels published during the 19th century and narrating love stories between young people, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1817) and Washington Square by Henry James (1880). Both excerpts are from the beginning of the novels: chapter 3 for Jane Austen's novel and chapter 4 for Henry James's. [...]
[...] Nevertheless, despite these similarities, one notices that Henry James put more emphasis on the young man's looks: he is not only described as "so beautiful" but also "like young men in pictures": "Catherine had never seen such features - so delicate, so chiseled and finished." We know what he looks like, while Mr. Tilney is not described at all in Jane Austen's excerpt. Besides drawing this picture of the ideal love interest, the excerpts are entirely dedicated to a dialogue between the two young people. [...]
