Jane Austen Makes Great Points...

Jane Austen is considered one of the greats of her time. She knew how to poke fun at the rich and pompous, without pushing it too far, and her satiric irony is still relevant today. When people think of Austen though, they immediately think of Pride and Prejudice or Emma. Both are phenomenal novels with strong protagonist characters in Elizabeth and Emma but the book most forget—that could have the greater deeper meaning—is Northanger Abbey.

The novel has a ditzy and “occasionally stupid” lead character in Catherine that which already alludes to the fact that this book isn’t like her other works (Austen 2). It is a satiric story about the silly fears people had about the gothic novel. In the 18^th century people believed that by reading these books they would live a corrupted lifestyle and Austen wrote the novel to poke fun at the ridiculousness of the idea. This book is the road map for how to navigate around fiction and not take it all to heart—people can read for fun and entertainment without being corrupted.

Personally though, I think it might also be a book about how to navigate around what to read and how much a person should actually indulge in fiction and read a wide variety of things so that the person is a well-rounded individual.

As Austen does write novels she explains that “I will not adopt the ungenerous custom” of degrading the novel, because as she sees it she can’t let her heroine “take up a novel” and “open the pages and turn her head in disgust” when in reality the heroine is within the very thing she is disgusted about (Austen Northanger Abbey 18). Austen sees novels as another tool to learn from.

An advice writer for girls during this time was Hester Chapone and she had a similar stance on the subject. In Hester Chapone’s essay, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, she writes to her nieces about the importance of having a second opinion on all things a person reads, especially if it is of questionable content. Chapone understood that reading was necessary but didn’t want her nieces to have a corrupted mind, so she said to always take the “judgment of your best friend” first when deciding to read fiction (Chapone 189). A person needs that older and wiser adult leading their mind in the correct direction as to not make harmful mistakes. Chapone wanted her nieces to understand that a trusted adult could make the judgment call for them because they have lived life and could send them down the correct path.

Chapone, like Austen understands that fiction is needed in life if a person wants to be well-rounded and well informed in society. This same type of thinking can be applied today.

My mom always says, “even if you don’t agree with someone’s opinion hear them out and know every side of a topic before drawing conclusions.” This same philosophy can be applied with books. A person needs to see all sides of a story to know the facts. So “all sides of the story” would be those questionable books that people are warned not to read. Get the warning, understand what is being cautioned about the novel and make the judgment for yourself. Read with your mentor’s perspective in mind—this person is someone you think highly of—and remember what they found iffy about the book and make the call yourself.