Catherine Morland was born to be a heroine. We all have a stereotyped image of the hero or heroine. Yet in Jane Austen's Northhanger Abbey, Morland was shown to be an extraordinarily ordinary girl. She does not display the characteristics of a great hero or heroine that we have all come to aspect. Through the use of imagery and paradox, we, the reader, are shown an ordinary young girl who grows into an extraordinary women. The passage opens with a description of the family Morland was born into. A respectable clergyman of a father, a simple mother, and ten children, we are given the image of a standard, middle class family with a few extra children to look. One that most of us can relate to, but don't really image as a breeding ground for greatness. …show more content…
The image of Morland painted in the reader's mind is not that of an impressive heroine. Furthermore, the passage continues to explain the her mental faculties were not of any particularly impressive order either. She is even described as stupid at times. The author paints the image of an average, unimpressive girl rather than what we generally consider a hero. The tastes of Morland are described as perhaps her only distinguishing feature. Morland is shown to rebellious, to pick flowers just to create mischief, and to partake in games generally associated to boys rather than what was conventional of little girls at the time. She shirked her French and accounting lesson whenever she could, and was generally noisy and wild and hated confinement and cleanliness. However, quite paradoxically, despite showing all these traits associated to your generic hoodlum, Morland didn't display a poor temper, particular stubbornness, and was in fact quite kind. Though the greatest paradox set in the passage was the premise set that this girl would be a heroine yet as a girl, she was an ordinary young girl who didn't display the traits we associate to