GRE Reading Comprehension
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Source: Kaplan
In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen rejects and satirizes English Jacobin political Gothicism. In the unfamiliar setting of Northanger Abbey, Catherine makes many dramatic mistakes in interpretation. Lacking the worldly experience to chasten and direct her subjective, "natural" sympathies and imagination, she relies on what she has learned in reading novels and interprets her present world as if it were a Gothic romance: Catherine sees General Tilney as a tyrant and Northanger Abbey as a facade for secret horrors. Catherine's suitor and Tilney's son, Henry, recognizes her error and reminds her of the current social and political reality, his speech asserting a particular view of the present constitution of Britain and thus of British society. Critic Goldstein found it characteristic of Austen's disregard of novelistic excess that Henry's perception of Catherine's error does not diminish the value of her character in his eyes, nor lead him to reject her as a prospective wife—which would be too indicative of a mere Gothic novel.
The passage's description of Henry Tilney suggests which of the following conclusions?
- A Henry acts like a pedantic know-it-all, a trait he inherited from his tyrant father, General Tilney.
- B Over the course of the novel, Henry's warm feelings for Catherine steadily evolve into fiery passion.
- C Henry's perception of Catherine's error is heightened by his high regard for his country's social reality.
- D Henry is a tolerant man, who values Catherine, even with her overly active—and misdirected—imagination.
- E Henry undercuts his father's views of Catherine by accepting her as his prospective wife.