Theme of Friendship

And yet despite the nearly deafening clangor of marriage bells in AustenÆs works, and despite the amount of mental anguish that her characters devote to matchmaking and being matched, the theme of friendship is just as important as that of romantic love, although rarely acknowledged to be so. If AustenÆs pages are full of endless dialogue about the importance of love and marriage, it is important to note that all of this dialogue is going on between friends. After a brief summary of AustenÆs work, this paper looks at the importance of friendship in Northanger Abbey (1818) and how the theme of friendship relates both to the importance of marriage and to the characters relationship to the larger society.

Austen (1775-1817) has become known not simply as one of the major female English novelists û a position that she held for several decades last century û but simply one of the best English novelists because of her brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction. In her work can be clearly seen a clear transition in English literature from 18th-century neoclassicism to 19th-century romanticism

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itself )Johnson, 1995, p. 110). AustenÆs novel follows the travails of Catherine Morland, who while visiting Bath with her friend the flighty if pleasant Mrs. Allen, falls in love with the young clergyman Henry Tilney. Retiring to the ancestral Tilney home, Morland û who has herself read RadcliffeÆs novel û sees ghouls and nightmarish horrors behind every door. However, the only true horror proves to be HenryÆs father, whom he ignores when he asks for CatherineÆs hand in marriage. CatherineÆs and Mrs. AllenÆs friendship is at the core of the novel, for without it none of the particular events of this novel would take place. It is also important in that it is friendship to a large degree masked as a familial relationshipö Mrs. Allen is as much mother to Catherine as friend (Johnson, 1995, p. 112). CatherineÆs friendship Eleanor Tilney is also central to the novel, and the fact that it too comes in the guise of familial ties is important in understanding AustenÆs use of friendship in the novel. Friendship is not meant to supplant marriage; that is AustenÆs official line and certainly a reflection of the time. And yet, it is also true that friendship does quite often supplant marriage, and AustenÆs novels (as is life itself) are
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Approximate Word count = 1395
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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