Henry is wrong and Catherine is right

Jane Austen has something to say about conspiracy theories, Henry Tilney is the ultimate mansplainer, and we continue our series on Austen and democracy.

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Hello friends,

Spring is springing here in the northern hemisphere and wherever you are joining us from, welcome: We’re talking about Austen and democracy - and by that we mean power, influence, information, and persuasion in our world today and how all of these things in Austen’s world of the Regency and long 18th century plays out in her stories. 

And being in a democracy or even in a non-democracy today means navigating information and disinformation, and it has always meant that. 

Democracy - by which we loosely mean our public dialogue and ideas and how they impact, shape or navigate our power structures - has always been precarious and based on what we know and how we act on what we know.

And of course Jane Austen had something to say about all this. And she had, it appears when you really look at it, quite a lot to say about information, disinformation, and - yes - even conspiracy theories.

So for this post, let’s take a tour of Northanger Abbey!

Yes, we’re going to join Catherine Morland as she cringingly creeps around this old edifice, and we’re going to see what we can find by examining two key passages in the novel that show us something Austen is revealing throughout the entire novel, about information and the pursuit of knowledge and how it impacts our relationships and our lives and our society. Austen is talking about all of this in this sometimes-silly gothic remix of a novel!

We’re talking about democracy - by which we loosely mean our public dialogue and ideas and how we impact, shape, or navigate our power structures. And Jane Austen has a lot to say about this. Photo by Fred Moon on Unsplash

First off: As we’re creeping around the Abbey we don’t actually stumble on anything horrific, but rather Henry Tilney, our crush, stumbles upon us. Which might be a different kind of horrific.

And Henry’s speech in Northanger Abbey has for 200 years been seen as a dressing-down of Catherine, which yes it is  - and it’s usually seen as a warranted one because Catherine has in fact been discovered in a sort of non-public area, in Henry’s late mother’s bedroom. And when asked why she’s there, the always-honest and genuine and also highly imaginative Catherine has basically questioned Henry about whether his father might have by chance killed his mother?!

Yes horrifying but not in the usual way of a gothic novel of the time, because it is more rife with cringe than horror.

But let’s look closely at Henry’s speech. Yes, he’s ostensibly schooling our dear Catherine.

But Austen herself might be doing something a bit more subtle and layered than that. And too often we miss Austen’s wisdom by unquestioningly accepting the proclamations of her smart heroes and heroines, especially the ones that are so charming, like Henry Tilney.

So let’s not take Henry at his word so much, and in fact look a bit deeper than his actual words to get at something else Austen might be showing us. And it has to do with conspiracies.

To set this up properly, Catherine and her imaginative ordering of reality, largely based on her enjoyment of gothic novels, has become obsessed with the “mystery” of how Henry’s mother died - could it have been at the hands of his father, her husband, whom Catherine has seen and observed as the despot that he is? Inquiring minds want to know!

But when Henry discovers Catherine - and we readers are guilty by association - creeping around his late mother’s living quarters, he proceeds to give her a few options and every opportunity for an excuse, charming, reasonable guy that he is: 

First: Was it because his sister Eleanor encouraged and invited Catherine to view this part of the house, which is rather pleasant, is it not? No? 

Well then, it must be because Eleanor has spoken so much of her beloved late mother that Catherine was drawn to view her rooms to get more of a sense of her? No?

Here’s Catherine’s ever-so-honest (and ever-cringing) answer, and as with All Austen Arguments pay attention to the blocking she gives us, which tells us everything. Take it away, Catherine and Henry, starting with Catherine:

“—no, not much, but what she did say, was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly,” (slowly, and with hesitation, it was spoken,) “and you—none of you being at home—and your father, I thought—perhaps had not been very fond of her.”

“And from these circumstances,” [Henry] replied, (his quick eye fixed on her’s,) “you infer perhaps the probability of some negligence—some—(involuntarily she shook her head)—or it may be—of something still less pardonable.” She raised her eyes towards him more fully than she had ever done before. “My Mother's illness,” he continued, “the seizure which ended in her death was sudden. … On the fifth day she died. During the progress of her disorder, Frederick and I (we were both at home) saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation can bear witness to her having received every possible attention which could spring from the affection of those about her, or which her situation in life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a distance as to return only to see her mother in her coffin.”

“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”

“For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to—We have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition—and I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her death.” …

…[Henry continues,] “If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to—Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you—Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay every thing open? Dearest Miss Moralnd, what ideas have you been admitting?”

They had reached the end of the gallery; and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room.

OK! Did you get this, friends? We are civilized, we are Christians, we are English! Hurrah! But wait.  

Is Jane Austen - who seems to be satirizing, sending up, and smashing everything both in her later novels to come (this was her first) and even more so in the rollicking chaos of her teenage writings that have preceded this one, is this really Austen getting serious through the words of her young charmingly sardonic hero Henry? Is Austen suddenly straightening up, wiping the grin off her face, and telling us what we should really and truly, no really and truly, be respectful of? Yes? What do you think? 

Is Austen suddenly straightening up, wiping the grin off her face, and telling us what we should really and truly, no really and truly, be respectful of? Yes? What do you think? 

For 200 years, this passage from Henry Tilney has been read as an upholding of the laws of England, its civilization, its Christianity. We’re going to look again!

Henry, the ultimate mansplainer

And when you look again, you can see that yes Henry is urging Catherine to trust - in our national values, our national power structures, and the order it brings.

Except that it doesn’t. Things aren’t in the Regency at all orderly, and in Northanger Abbey Austen perhaps shows us nothing so much as how disorderly it is, even though nothing in the plot calls for her to.

For instance: She shows us that General Tilney will read his “stupid pamphlets” - a nod to the disinformation and attending censorship within the climate of the 1790s; she stages a funny miscommunication between Eleanor Tilney and Catherine, one that Henry explains their way out of, wherein one of them is talking about actual riots happening in London and one is talking about a novel and they confuse each other - a lot going on there!

And it points to the fact that in 1790s England, when a young Jane Austen was first penning this novel, her present times were steeped in unrest, mistrust, Napoleonic threats, a transatlantic trade in humans, French and American revolutions, riots, and violent crackdowns on crime and uprisings; things were out of control. And nevertheless writers, poets, and their pamphlets were challenging authority and sending people to prison.

So it’s in this climate that Austen - through Henry - points to something that might be more of an examination of than an endorsement of so-called stability and a maintenance of the status quo. Like Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, surely it’s reasonable to see Austen as sometimes challenging and examining these power structures and the status quo, not always upholding them. 

But also, as always, there are some things that Austen is calling for, envisioning and revisioning for us in this passage.

So let’s look not just at what Austen is questioning but also what she is pointing to and calling for. What is Austen for?

Is ‘Northanger Abbey’s’ charming Henry Tilney the biggest mansplainer in literary history? OK yeah maybe. Pictured: The magnetic JJ Field in a photo still from the 2007 Andrew Davies production for PBS/WGBH.

Let’s look at three key places in Henry’s ultimate-mansplaining speech that show us a way forward through confusion, disinformation, and conspiracy. Here we go:

‘Consider the dreadful nature’ - indeed!

Really? In the middle of an English bucolic country house and heritage, Catherine is contemplating murder? Sacrilege! Imagine!

So first, when we take Henry at his word, which is what critics have been doing for 200 years and counting, Henry is reminding the wayward Catherine of our nation’s laws, our nation’s Christian values, and the general orderliness of our fair life here in fair England.

There’s much to dispute here - and we’ll get to that in a minute.

But first, there is something right (though ultimately wrong) in Henry’s reining Catherine in here, and that is that he is asking her to just stop, think, consider, before jumping off on an imaginative, misinformed conspiracy.

Because imaginative, misinformed conspiracies can be extremely attractive. And this part of Henry’s question we might find relevant today.

Austen is saying to stop, consider, and let cooler heads prevail. Don’t believe everything you read. We are a civilized nation upheld by laws and built on a foundation of rights and order and philosophy, not to mention facts. Don’t let your imagination carry you away. 

This exact sentence of Henry Tilney’s - “What have you been judging from?” - just might work as an apt rebuttal to any conspiracy theorists in your life: Wake up, don’t get carried away, people aren’t out to dupe you for sport and for votes and for power - things don’t necessarily, or usually, work that way. Keep your cool. 

These days, just more than two years after a January 6th uprising at our US Capitol that staged an actual violent challenge to our voting and democratic systems - an uprising largely created by misinformation and irrational persuasion by people who may feel disenfranchised but are being misled by people in power - Henry’s question seems like a good thing to ask ourselves.

‘Consult your own understanding.’ Yes, that means you.

But there’s other work Austen is doing in this passage too, some work that might make the Henry-adorers among us breathe a bit more easily because that mansplaining tone has always been a bit tricky to adore, yes?

And the other thing Austen is calling for in this passage is: rationality and equality. 

Austen is speaking through Henry - and what she’s saying through Henry is not only ‘be rational, friends,’ but she’s also saying: Women are rational, friends, if you only call them to be.

It’s a shame it had to be said, but it did. Henry is not just calling Catherine out - he’s challenging her to be better. 

And in doing so, he’s - as other male Austen characters do - in a sense ventriloquizing Mary Wollstonecraft, who in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman pleads for women to be challenged and raised further, as rational humans with the highest standards, for everyone’s sakes.

Check it out, right here in the first page of her introduction (taken from this study by Professor Eileen Hunt Botting):

I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result? – a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity – One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.

Wollstonecraft here is begging her world to do what Henry is also challenging Catherine to do: Shake off this prescribed role of beautiful flower inspiring love and instead use your education and your mind to grow into that nobler ambition of your abilities and “exact respect.”

So just maybe, through Henry, Austen is showing that if naive lovely Catherine is worth the trouble to Henry to challenge to greater heights, perhaps young women and young people everywhere, whatever their gender, background, or identity, just might also be worth the trouble of bothering and challenging. 

Yes, sure, it’s impossible to assume that Austen is doing this consciously - nevertheless we can look at what her text is doing, and her text is certainly doing some important work here that is lasting, and that we can take and apply to our lives, spaces, and identities - wherever we are.

‘Remember the country and the age in which we live’ - Stupid pamphlets, propaganda, and media

And now, we circle back to a third thing and maybe the biggest thing that Austen is potentially doing in this passage. It’s bigger than the conspiracy theorists, bigger than the appeal to take women and young people seriously: and that is, by Henry’s very protestations about England’s grand foundation of law and stability she’s actually making us question it all. 

When you look at Austen’s work - it just doesn’t as a body seem to have much to recommend in either Christianity or in the laws of England. Rather it seems to question national values and the failings of our faith and our power structures, through the riotous misdeeds and bad characters that hold them up - characters like Mansfield Park’s Sir Thomas, Persuasion’s Sir Walter, Pride and Prejudice’s Lady Catherine, Sense and Sensibility’s Fanny Dashwood, and yes Northanger Abbey’s General Tilney. 

When you look at Austen’s work - it just doesn’t as a body seem to have much to recommend in either Christianity or in the laws of England. Rather it seems to question national values and the failings of our faith and our power structures, through the riotous misdeeds and bad characters that hold them up - characters like Mansfield Park’s Sir Thomas, Persuasion’s Sir Walter, Pride and Prejudice’s Lady Catherine, Sense and Sensibility’s Fanny Dashwood, and yes Northanger Abbey’s General Tilney. 

Henry’s speech is not as much a speech as it is a call to question: Question everything! How do you know this? Aren’t we decent? Aren’t we Christian?

But we do know - to call up just the one huge example - that Austen was an admirer of abolitionists, and abolitionist writers both political and poetical. Both the Clarksons and the Cowpers. (Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, whom Austen professed to “love”; and her favorite poet William Cowper, author of the anti-slavery poem “The Task.”) What does it say about England, about its laws, its values, about its brand of Christianity, when it all upholds and benefits from a trade in human bondage and enslavement? When it relegates younger sons and daughters and women to disenfranchisement, displacement, or poverty? Debates raged about all of this as a very young Austen wrote this novel.

So perhaps Austen is making Henry protest a bit too much. You can read his questions again, and again consider our answer:

“Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay every thing open?”

So, Henry: Since atrocities like the slave trade, and riots based on class oppressions, and crackdowns, chaos, and revolutions are playing out, not only in the midst of but often perpetuated by our laws, by our religions, and our spies, maybe, Henry, the answer is, Yes? 

So, Henry: Since atrocities like the slave trade, and riots based on class oppressions, and crackdowns, chaos, and revolutions are playing out, not only in the midst of but often perpetuated by our laws, by our religions, and our spies, maybe, Henry, the answer is, Yes? 

What if our societal structures, our laws, and our power base are not in fact built upon the bucolic, ordered, and just foundation we tend to assume, as evidenced - to name just one example under our very own roof here at Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park - by our profligate older brothers of the ruling classes?

Considering that it’s these very foundations that are being maintained and preserved by the General Tilneys and Sir Walters and John Dashwoods of the land as they reveal their full authentic selves as cruel, vain, superficial, and greedy men who are not capable of leading our nation into its future - well then, what’s our answer, Catherine?!

Austen has given us 200 years to figure out what it is, and let’s hope we’ll have the privilege and good fortune to debate it for another 200. 

And meanwhile what it comes down to is: Catherine Morland is actually right! General Tilney may as well be a murderer.

And while we thought Austen was using charming Henry to reel us all back in to the English Regency ruling order of the country houses, in fact Henry’s speech is full of questions, examinations, and challenges. And we think that these questions - and the context that’s so much fun to talk about - are relevant to our lives and our politics and our power structures today.

Don’t stop questioning, and feel free to use the questions Austen, through charming Henry Tilney, has set for us: 

What are we judging from? Do our laws, our faith, our education prepare us for justice and order? Or do they in fact prepare us for chaos, disorder, and injustice? What do we see?

Let’s challenge ourselves, judge for ourselves, and talk about it - like Henry and Catherine. And then move, like Henry and Catherine, toward perfect felicity, domestic and otherwise. 

---

But what do you think, friends?

How do you read this mansplaining passage of Northanger Abbey? Has it always bothered you just a little, and do you feel this discussion sheds any light, or do you have further ideas on this? Let us know!

And meanwhile, hope you are enjoying a beautiful weekend wherever you are, whatever you’re reading and whatever and whomever you’re listening to, and arguing with. Don’t go wandering off into any abbeys, or if you do - be ready to defend yourself with rationality and astuteness as you seek the information you need to navigate your world.

Thank you for being here,

Your friend,

Plain Jane  

Cool links and community

• The quotes from the Northanger Abbey text in this essay come from the Norton Critical Edition of the novel, edited by Susan Fraiman

• Check out Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelley

• More information on abolitionist writer Thomas Clarkson

• Take a deeper dive into General Tilney’s “stupid pamphlets” and the history behind them with Diane and Zan from the marvelous podcast The Thing About Austen, in this episode - and the hosts refer to this article by Shinobu Minma about tyranny and General Tilney

• Cool thing - Pastiche NYC’s musical version of Persuasion - this is truly delightful and diverting, check it out!

• Another cool thing from our Substack friends -

  Meet Cute Missives
  - it’s all about romcoms, tropes, and an expansive take on the world of romance, including this post on reading and watching Bridget Jones in a less-toxic 2023, and our Austen Connection post on Jane Austen and the romcom! This project is from Elizabeth Held who runs a Substack about books,
  What To Read If
  and Aya Martin Seaver with
  Can You Stand Her?
  Enjoy!

• Here’s what Lucy Worsley is up to - we’ll be listening!

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