Thank You Austen!

I feel like I say this about every novel that we've read, but seriously Austen's Northanger Abbey is my favorite. I appreciate the fact that Austen satarizes virtually everything that annoyed me about the other novels we've read. I loved Burney, but she was still somewhat afraid to be unconventional. Unlike Burney, Austen had no problem with her heroine realizing that she's in love before the man has declared his love first. Also, I love the fact that Catherine tries to turn the abbey into a haunted house because she is influenced by the Gothic novels that she enjoys reading. The scene where she goes to see the room that Eleanor's mother died in is hysterical. Instead of being a dark and haunted room, it is actually a bright room with lovely furniture. It's refreshing to read a novel that breaks all of the rules of society, but still manages to be more than just a parody of other works. Austen created a genuine heroine who I was cheering for the entire time, and I'm glad that she ends up with Henry in the end.