Northanger Abbey · Chapter
Chapter V explained
Catherine continues to search for Mr.
What happens
Catherine continues to search for Mr. Tilney in Bath but cannot find him, leading her to believe he has left. She spends time with Isabella Thorpe, and their friendship deepens rapidly. Mrs. Allen is pleased to have found Mrs. Thorpe as an acquaintance. The narrator defends the reading of novels against contemporary criticism.
Themes in this chapter
Friendship and Deception
The rapid and intense friendship between Catherine and Isabella is highlighted, with Isabella encouraging Catherine's romantic hopes.
Reality vs. Imagination
Catherine's imagination embellishes Mr. Tilney's mysterious absence, adding a 'fresh grace' to her perception of him.
Characters to notice
- Catherine Morland
Catherine is disappointed at not finding Mr. Tilney and indulges in thoughts about him with Isabella.
- Isabella Thorpe
Isabella encourages Catherine's interest in Mr. Tilney and expresses a partiality for clergymen.
- Mrs. Allen
Mrs. Allen is happy with her new acquaintance Mrs. Thorpe and enjoys spending time with her.
- Mrs. Thorpe
Mrs. Thorpe is a friend of Mrs. Allen and talks chiefly about her children.
- Henry Tilney
Henry is absent from Bath, causing Catherine to wonder about his mysterious departure.
Key passages
“Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre that evening, in returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they certainly claimed much of her leisure, as to forget to look with an inquiring eye for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach; but she looked in vain.”
At the theatre, Catherine was too busy searching for Mr. Tilney to fully engage with Isabella's nods and smiles, but she did not see him anywhere.
Catherine's preoccupation with finding Mr. Tilney is evident.
“This sort of mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine’s imagination around his person and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him.”
Mr. Tilney's mysterious absence made him seem even more heroic and attractive to Catherine, heightening her curiosity.
Catherine's romantic imagination is influenced by novelistic conventions.
“Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding.”
The narrator refuses to follow the common practice of novelists who disparage the very genre they write in.
The narrator defends the value of novels against contemporary criticism.