A Comparative study of settings and characters as they reveal Austen's moral ideas of human conduct in Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park

Tin, Thio Tin (1996) A Comparative study of settings and characters as they reveal Austen's moral ideas of human conduct in Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park. Bachelor thesis, Petra Christian University.

Abstract

The writer in this thesis is trying to analyse Jane Austen's settings and characters in Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park as they reveal the dangers of worldliness which could lead human beings into self-destruction. In the two novels, Austen describes the characteristics of big cities and countrysides, how values result in different attitudes toward life to the inhabitants. As in Northanger Abbeyf the worldly values in the big city cause the urban to seem to be unagreeable in their conducts; whereas in Mansfield Park, such attitude has become a threat to the structure of the society. Indeed since the values of the urban settings are in contrast to those of the rural settings, the characters of the urban are also very different from the countryman. However, through the analysis, the writer finds out that although setting moulds character, everybody still has a choice to follow their moral conscience instead of merely the common social behaviors.

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