Unmasking the Villan of Northanger Abbey.

Throughout our childhood bedtime stories have consisted of the same type of characters recycled throughout different stories. We grew up listening, reading, and watching heroes and villains dominate our literature, television, and movies. Now as adults I can still pickup a book, or turn on a show and find the same hero and villain characters just as easy as when I was five. It seems simple to pick out which characters fit their roles directly when we've listened, read, and watch these same types of characters played out time and time again, yet in Northanger Abbey we are told right away Catherine is no heroine. So if the main character is not distinguished as a hero, can there be a villain?

Northanger Abbey's characters do not fit the traditional mold of what we would we see as heroes and villains, however just because the characters don't follow traditional hero and villain standards doesn't mean we can't categorize them in those molds.  Austen's gothic parody is meant to poke fun at the traditional Gothic literature, so of course none of the characters fit into the exact stereotypes.

In my eyes there are many villains lurking in Northanger Abbey. Let me begin with the most obvious which would be John Thorpe. John is egocentric, arrogant, and exaggerative. He lies for his own benefit. He takes advantage of Catherine's naiveté in a way the reader of the story can look at with disgust. In one specific scene of the book John goes as far as in my eyes kidnapping Catherine, and deceiving her by lying about the Tilneys on two separate occasions. He goes to extremes to get what he wants. He is an aggressive liar, loud and rude.  John Thorpe has all the characteristics of a villain, he is the easiest to point the finger at when talking about an antagonist for the story. Then there's General Tilney, a snob who has real predjuices of lower standing class than he. General Tilney is borderline tyrant, who doesn't treat his children the best. He also only sucks up to Catherine when he thinks she is rich, but after John lies yet again and makes Catherine seems poor the General treats her with disgust and rudeness. The General creates turmoil for our main character Catherine, he too would be easy to pinpoint as the villain, but what if Catherine herself was the heroine and the villain? Catherine is the cause of too many of her own woes. She reads her reality like the pages of her Gothic novels, which makes Austen's novel all the more comedic, but doesn't characterize Catherine as a heroine, but more of her own villain. Just as a villain in any other story some how gets defeated, Catherine too defeats her villains by experiences, and maturing into social society. From a different perspective maybe the villains of the story such as General Tilney and John Thorpe help her more than the audience thinks.

This story could have many villains, this story could have none, but I think with any story that has a hero there is always a villain, maybe even more than one.