Page 52 - All About History - Issue 70-18

Gothic literature

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
is credited with inventing the Jane
‘mad woman in the attic’ trope

Austen

(1775-1817)

There was more
to Austen than
snapshots of

gentry life

The ever popular Jane Austen
is known for her witty critiques
of the upper and middle classes
of her time, but she was also
a talented satirist of other
genres. Northanger Abbey (1817)
offers
parody of Gothic
a clever
Charlotte Brontë fiction, notably that of Austen’s sharp writing. In the Quarterly
contemporary Ann Radcliffe.
Review, popular novelist Walter
(1816-1855) Austen’s Gothic-obsessed heroine Scott intimated that the Gothic
Catherine Morland supplies the ‘romance’ moulded in the 1790s
A potent blend of romance and realism changed humour, thanks to her courter by himself and others, had been
‘the novel’ forever Henry Tilney mocking the supplanted by tales of ordinary life,
genre on the pair’s journey to with Austen leading the charge.
Like sister Emily, Charlotte Brontë – and critique such as the claim
alluded to the Gothic in her work, (by a female reviewer) that if Jane Northanger Abbey, imitating But he couldn’t help adding to
and was seemingly inspired by Eyre was written by a woman, it Radcliffe’s The Romance Of The this praise, the contrast of his
the pioneering Ann Radcliffe. In was the work of one who has “long Forest, merged with The Mysteries fictional world to Jane’s depictions
–
both Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette forfeited the society of her own Of Udolpho. Austen who valued of “the middling classes of society”:
(1857), Charlotte depicted buildings sex” Charlotte strove to highlight the individuality of her flawed “Presenting to the reader, instead of
–
seemingly in thrall to supernatural the realities of life for 19th century heroines – is said to have been the splendid scenes of an imaginary
forces, with episodes including women, and to also champion influenced in childhood by her world, a correct and striking
Jane sighting an apparition in their rights and talents. family to appreciate a quick representation of that which is daily
Thornfield Hall. But in line with This commitment to the cause wit, and this resulted in her taking place around him.”
Radcliffe’s ‘explained supernatural’, shaped Charlotte into a feminist
these happenings are given logical heroine for modern women, and “If adventures will not befall a young lady in
explanations, though much fear is has helped to secure her glowing her own village, she must seek them abroad.”
stirred along the way. It has been reputation, already kindled by her Northanger Abbey
argued that Charlotte’s mix of iconic stories.
romance and realism in Jane Eyre
was her crowning success.
She also demonstrated her fierce
ambition, and consideration of
women’s position in society, in
much of her work. Confronted
by the realisation that women
writers were looked down on

“I am no bird;
and no net

ensnares me: I
am a free human
being with an

independent
will.”

Jane Eyre Austen didn’t just write romances
like Pride and Prejudice

2