Northanger Abbey: The gothic in text and film

Northanger Abbey, by the one and only Jane Austen, brilliantly parodies the popular gothic novels of the Romantic era and critiques the power a novel can have over a reader. I first read Northanger Abbey last year for a Romantic Literature course. Once I finished the novel, I watched the movie version, made back in 2007, and compared it to the book. (I am a firm believer in reading the book first before watching the movie because the book is always better.) For the most part, the movie stayed true to the book and accurately captured Austen's critique of the gothic genre.

The Portrayal of the Gothic

I thought the movie did especially well of showing Catherine’s obsession with gothic novels and how it affects her view of the world. While the book only seems to attribute Catherine’s reading of gothic novels to affecting her judgement later on in the novel when she goes to Northanger Abbey with the Tilneys, the movie shows Catherine allowing her imagination to run wild from the beginning. When Mr. and Mrs. Allen and Catherine are en route to Bath, travelling by carriage, Catherine imagines that their carriage is highjacked by highwaymen who murder Mr. Allen and presumably take her hostage. This imagining immediately follows Catherine’s voice reading an excerpt from a gothic novel, making it all too clear that it is the novel that is causing Catherine’s daydreaming. These dreams are interspersed throughout the movie. Rather than appearing frightened, Catherine seems to enjoy the dark, gothic scenes she imagines. Nevertheless, Catherine manages to remain in reality despite these wild imaginings until she goes to Northanger Abbey where she starts to believe that she has finally entered into a gothic novel-like situation.

The Power of the Soundtrack

I thought the movie soundtrack did a phenomenal job of bringing the gothic theme of Northanger Abbey to life. The viewer is encouraged to enter in to Catherine’s fantasies by the music. A perfectly normal and ordinary scene, like where Catherine is searching the old chest in her room, is made sinister and creepy because of the music. A movie soundtrack has enormous power over a viewer as most viewers rely on the music to tell them how to interpret a certain scene. In a thriller or horror movie, the viewer usually knows ahead of time if there is going to be a jump scare by the tone of the music. I think the soundtrack in Northanger Abbey helps to draw out the theme of trusting one’s judgement. The viewer can choose to trust the music, which tells the viewer that something sinister is going on, or the viewer can trust their better judgement and believe that there is nothing in the chest and that Northanger is a normal house with normal people living in it.

While the movie version of Northanger Abbey does make a few small changes to the plot of the novel, the movie brilliantly succeeds in drawing out Austen's parody of the gothic novel through a portrayal of Catherine’s imaginings as well as the soundtrack.