Catherine Morland: Naive and Ready for the World?

In Chapter I of Northanger Abbey the reader is introduced to the book's "heroin" Catherine Morland. She is seventeen years old and has spent all of her life in the rural area of Fullerton. She is seen as not being very beautiful, intelligent, or wealthy: she is simply average. Austin writes in a way that it seems that Catherine is oblivious to all these things. She is quite content with who she is, and pays little attention to what is going on around her.

Catherine's naivete is most striking. She has a passion for reading novels, which is not a very proper thing for her to be doing at this time, but she cannot read people. Her sweet, caring nature helps to cover some of her inexperience in the world.

In the beginning of the novel Catherine is invited to travel to Bath, of course she is overly excited for the conquest, as her mother is more indifferent to the idea. Catherine sets out to explore the world. We first see her in a large setting of people at a ball, where she dances with no one. And to the reader's dismay, Catherine is quite happy. She feels that just by presenting her self in the
"lady-like" fashion out in society was teh ultimate goal. It does not matter to her at all that she did not interact with anyone besides the people in her party.

It is also at thestart of the novel that the reader really gets to know about Catherine's passion for Gothic novels. She often compares people around her to things in her books. She has a very vivid imagination, yet does not have enough common sense to know is someone is flirting with her or not. One would think that due to the fact that she is quite the avid reader, she would be a better reader of people, or at least more observant.