Villainy in Northanger Abbey

As I brought up in class, Northanger Abbey could be viewed largely as a coming of age story; Catherine is introduced in chapter 1 as having "by nature nothing heroic about her," and is noted to have built up an image of herself as a heroine by reading so many (gothic) novels. However, as the novel progresses, and Catherine finds herself trying to fit the plot of her life with that of her favorite books (i.e. suspecting General Tilney of murder), it becomes clear that Catherine is not truly a hero, and she has no true villain to combat.

While Isabella is shallow, basing her social relationships on how much they will benefit her, and John is obnoxious, consistently making advances toward Catherine while assuming she's interested, neither of these are truly villainous behaviors in the grand, fictitious sense of the word. Both characters are still relatively tolerable toward Catherine, and neither go out of their way to undo Catherine's 'heroism.'

While at Northanger Abbey, it becomes clear that the force most antagonistic to Catherine is her own naivete. As she takes in the details of the room she is staying in, she notices and old chest in the corner and spends an entire paragraph fantasizing about what mysterious thing could be in it. She later searches every drawer in the room for "treasure," even checking them for false linings, and finding nothing. Her desire to live out a gothic novel at the abbey goes so far that she begins to suspect General Tilney of murdering his wife, a notion that offends Henry to the point that Catherine believes their chance to romance utterly destroyed. In her time at the abbey, Catherine has caused the most trouble for herself, and this fits with a reading of Northanger Abbey as a coming of age story.

The biggest part of Catherine's maturation is overcoming her naive desire to live like the heroine of a gothic novel. Isabella and John both help Catherine further along on this path by serving as fairly antagonistic characters, but this ultimately serves to help Catherine overcome her own shortcomings and grow into the more realistic person she is by the end.