#Catherine: *literally breaks into a foreboding cabinet in the middle of the night - finds illegible papers no doubt related to murder*

[triflesandparsnips]

Accidentally started rereading Northanger Abbey, and was sudden reminded all over again that Jane Austen is, in fact, fucking hilarious.

NA is her parody/satire of Gothic novels at the time, and she starts the book by choosing violence-- she describes the "tragedy" of the main character, Catherine Morland, a girl Determined to be a Heroine even though ALL ODDS are against her: she has a sane father who doesn't lock up his daughters, a healthy mother who didn't die in childbirth, no preternatural talent for music or drawing through which to reveal her Deepest Soul, and-- most shockingly of all-- absolutely zero love interests for whom she can wander the hills mourning their starcrossed fates until she wastes away from the sheer Sentimentality of it all.

But don't worry! She's got this FIGURED OUT. She KNOWS why she has not yet found her TRUE LOVE:

There was not one lord in the neighbourhood; no—not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

(SPOILER: She is introduced to a mysterious young man who lives in an ABBEY, which everyone knows means he has a DEEPLY MYSTERIOUS SECRET PAST and is maybe a TRAGIC HERO or even a ROMANTIC MONSTER and either way this is IT this is Catherine's TIME TO SHINE she is going to get a good grade in DOOMED LOVE, a thing that is normal to want and--)

(...meanwhile Henry Tilney-- an ordinary guy who never expected "get cast as the Hero in some Grand Gothic Romance" to show up on his bingo card-- starts wondering when exactly he started finding Catherine's attempts to locate bloody daggers in his linen closet charming.)

#Catherine: *literally breaks into a foreboding cabinet in the middle of the night - finds illegible papers no doubt related to murder* #Catherine: *accidentally blows her own candle out while trying to just lower the flame for Effect - proceeds to freak out* #Catherine: *woken up next day by a maid - the cabinet was a linen closet - the papers were inventory of sheets n shit* #Henry Tilney: “Why are you like this? And WHY am I apparently into it?? #Catherine: *too busy trying to stare through the keyhole of the abbey's Forbidden Rooms #totally doesn't hear him* #jane austen #northanger abbey #austen: both a diamond thief AND a talented humorist #give me a time machine and a dinner invite and I would 100% try and flirt with her #GIVE THIS TO ME SCIENCE