Monday, May 3, 2010

Northanger Abbey Volume II Chapter IX Plot Overview

In chapter 9 Catherine resolves to have a look around the deceased Mrs. Tilney's apartments that had not been included in her tour the day before. She looks around, not exactly knowing what to expect, and runs into Henry Tilney who dissuades her of her thinking the General had been involved in foul play regarding his wife's death.

"You have erred in supposing him not to be attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to" (Austen 164). Henry is disappointed in Catherine's trying to bring the fantastic world of the novel into real life.

"Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, you own sense of the probable, you own observation of what is passing around you – Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay ever thing open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?" (Austen 164). Catherine is suitably ashamed and quits all thoughts of evil doings in the Abbey.

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