Northanger Abbey

Explain the effects of insecurity in the novel northanger abbey

I really need to know the answer to this, so if you can please help...

Asked by
Last updated by Aslan
Answers 1
Add Yours

As far as I can see, insecurity largely comes via the theme of youth. Northanger Abbey is concerned with young people and their feelings. Heroines in other Austen novels—Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice and Emma Woodhouse in Emma, for example—are a little older than Catherine, and are not as naïveté as she. Northanger Abbey portrays Catherine in situations common to teenagers: she faces peer pressure when James, Isabella and John urge her to join them on their carriage trips, for example, and must contend with the bullying John Thorpe. Austen plays the youthful Catherine against the older, more experienced Henry Tilney. There are several instances in which the adults comment on the young people, either chuckling at their behavior or criticizing it. Many readers can sympathize with Catherine once she returns home and immediately becomes sulky and obstinate with her parents—particularly her mother, who starts gently nagging her daughter right away.

Source(s)

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/northangerabbey/themes.html