Every Austen work has her own shadow, and this one is no exception. The heroine, Katherine Moran, is a girl who loves to read weird novels. She has a bright nature and thinks more about ghosts and scary things in the world, but she doesn't know the sinister nature of the human heart. She accompanied the squire Allen and his wife to Bath, a spa, where she met and fell in love with Henry Tierney, a youth minister. At the same time, she also met another young man, John Thorpe. Thorpe mistakenly thought that Catherine was going to be the heir to Mr. Allen's property, so he became coveted. In order to raise his own value, he lied to Henry's father, General Tierney, about the Moran family's property, General Tierney. Believing it to be true, she tried her best to encourage her son to pursue Catherine.
When the family left Bath, he also invited Catherine to visit their home at Northanger Abbey, treating her as his own. Later, Thorpe's extravagant hope of pursuing Catherine was shattered, so he became angry and hurriedly overturned the previous touts of the Moran family, and then degraded the Moran family, saying how poor her family was. General Tierney listened to the slander again, thinking that the Moran family was impoverished, and angrily drove Catherine out of the house and ordered his son to forget her. But the two young lovers did not give in. After some setbacks, they finally became husband and wife.
I really like this work, it's humorous, ironic but a little weird. I believe that this is Austin's influence by a female science fiction writer he respects, but this is not only to show the weirdness of Northanger Abbey, but to bring out the darkness of people's hearts. No ghosts, no murders, but the sin of the mind is more sinister. General Tierney regards money as the first, but his tyranny cannot restrain love. Austin expresses his resistance to tyranny and the concept of the time with a happy ending.
Austen received so much attention, I think, because she was different from the female writers of the time. At that time, women's writing mainly focused on practicality, how to manage a family, how to capture men, etc., few people would pay attention to describing human nature and love. Austen is also different from radical feminists, her work is full of tenderness and objective expression regardless of ugliness. She was born in the middle class and has always lived by her family's side. Naturally, she deeply felt the warmth of her family and expressed the life and love of the middle class. Therefore, her works are very popular among the petty bourgeoisie, and the middle class are often intellectuals who love to read. With such a readership, one can imagine why Austen's works are so popular.
The focus of her writing is also to describe people's hearts - arrogance, prejudice, jealousy, suspicion, fantasy, pain, etc., all of which are shown meticulously. Not in a serious and heavy way, but in a playful and humorous tone, it always makes people feel emotionally warm rather than uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel that all the people in Austen's writings have happy endings, but she herself never married.
There is also a Sense and Sensibility that I haven't watched yet, so I'll finish it later.
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