Beyond the parody

gothic as narrative methodology in Northanger Abbey

Abstract

This article proposes that Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1817) is not limited to using the Gothic as a mere object of parody, but rather approaches it as a narrative methodology. The study therefore aims to analyse how Austen mobilises Gothic structures and expectations in order to articulate a critique of patriarchal authority. Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative and bibliographical approach, based on close reading of the novel on dialogue with critical studies on the Gothic aesthetics (Botting, 2005), parody (Hutcheon, 2000), and “artefictions” (Lim, 2017). From this perspective, the novel’s engagement with Gothic conventions generates interpretative circulations across multiple levels: the narrative, sociopolitical and geographical planes, as well as the novel’s own self-reflexivity. Such engagement highlights Austen’s literary craftsmanship both as a writer and as a reader, revealing her familiarity with Gothic tropes and with the critical commentary embedded within the tradition. Ultimately, Northanger Abbey does not simply laugh at the Gothic; rather, it laughs from within it, assembling and dismantling a sequence of events and misunderstandings that expose not the limitations of Gothic poetics, but the operations of patriarchy.