While you’re welcome to discuss anything you’d like in the first 9 chapters of Jane Eyre, here are some prompts to get you started thinking:

• Critical discussion of Jane Eyre often revolves around the 5 main houses Jane lives in over the course of the novel:  Gateshead Hall, Lowood School, Thornfield Manor, Moor House, and Ferndean.  In the reading for today, you’ve already been introduced to two of these houses.  Choose one and discuss it.  What does Jane learn there?  What are her struggles?  How does the house seem to fit with the Gothic format?
• Discuss the events and possible symbolism of the Red Room at Gateshead
• Examine the significance of Helen Burns or Miss Temple in the novel
• How are religious beliefs important in these opening chapters of the novel?

• Do you think Mary Shelley wants readers to think that Victor is right or wrong for tearing apart the female creature he made?  What specific evidence in the novel leads you to this conclusion?
• Discuss whether you believe Victor has really changed by the end of the novel.  You might consider the paradox we talked about a bit in class–in the beginning, Victor tells his story to “dash the cup” of immoral scientific ambition away from Walton, yet at the end he gives a stirring speech urging Walton’s men to continue on their mission.  What’s going on here?

Here are some prompts you might want to respond to in preparation for our discussion of Frankenstein today:

• If you had never read the book before, were you surprised by the depiction of the Creature?
• Do you have sympathy for the Creature?  Why or why not?
• Do you think his demand for an “Eve” (a female creature) is reasonable and just?
• Where does Victor really go wrong?
• What do you think is the purpose in the book of the sequence with the cottagers–Felix, Agatha, their father, and Safie?
• How do you think Shelley depicts Nature in the novel?

Many critics have pointed out that the women characters in Frankenstein seem relatively minor and passive, while the book focuses most fully on the relationship between Victor and his creature.  If this is the case, do you think there things in the novel that mark it specifically as a woman’s novel or a novel that is interested in women’s concerns?  In other words, how do you see Frankenstein as fitting into the tradition of the Female Gothic?  Or do you think it’s a novel that doesn’t really fit this tradition at all?

Respond to anything that particularly interests you in the first part of Frankenstein.  But here are some prompts to get you started thinking:

• What are your reactions to the author’s introduction to the novel?  Does Shelley seem confident in her own work?  Why or why not?  Is there anything in this introduction that shapes how you read the opening chapters of the novel itself?
• Why do you think Mary Shelley chooses to begin the novel with Walton’s story rather than directly with Victor Frankenstein himself?  What does she gain by using this framing device?
• Talk about Elizabeth Lavenza and the descriptions of her coming to join the Frankenstein family.  What does Victor mean when he describes her as “my more than sister”?  Reactions?
• On p. 35, Victor describes the monster coming to life:  “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.  Beautiful!–Great God!”  Why do you think the monster is not beautiful even though his separate parts were selected for their beauty?  Why is this important in the novel?

Now that you’ve finished the book, here are some prompts you might want to respond to concerning Northanger Abbey:

• The one character about whom Catherine is inclined to think the worst is General Tilney. Why is this? She is humiliated when Henry realizes how her imagination has run away with her, but how mistaken is she really regarding his general character?
• What about Henry himself?  How responsible is he for setting Catherine up for her expectations at the Abbey?  Is Tilney a closet romantic despite his seeming reasonableness at times?
• Catherine’s suspicions of Gothic evil turn out to be wrong, the fantasies of a young, impressionable girl––or do they? Is there actual evil in the novel ? If there is real evil, what is its nature, where does it lie, and what, if anything, is its connection with Catherine’s Gothic illusions?

• Perhaps respond to this passage (slightly shortened and reworded) from an analysis of the novel by Iva Jankovic:

We can see the changes that Catherine undergoes in the novel in two ways: 1) as an awakening and transition from the romantic world into reality, and 2) as a molding of a social outsider into the “standards” of society.

The first transition could be said to teach Catherine that reality is not nearly so dramatic and romantic as it’s presented in Gothic novels.  She gains common sense and learns to think rationally (and possibly even cynically?) about the world around her.

The second transition, though, is one Catherine is forced into.  From being a tomboy in her childhood, she is taken to Bath, where she must learn what it means to be an 18th century woman: to dress appropriately, to have good manners, to talk about clothes and hair and boys. She learns she must conform to other’s expectations if she is to get anywhere in life

So, the question Jankovic asks is this:  Does Catherine start out as a zombie? Or does she become one?

Here are some things you might want to consider about Northanger Abbey for today’s class:  Of course, like always, you’re free to write about anything in the novel that interested you.

• Now that we know Catherine a little better, what do you think of her as a character?  Is she admirable or silly?  Is she simply passive, or are there times when she stands up for herself?  How does she change over the course of the novel, and are these changes for the better or the worse in your opinion?
• Discuss Henry Tilney as a character.  Is he witty and delightful (as many Austen critics argue) or condescending and even misogynistic (as others claim)?  What do you think Henry sees in Catherine, why does he value her? Do you believe he really loves her?
• Discuss General Tilney and how we’re how to view him.
• Talk about how the Tilney and Thorpe family seem to be doubles (or opposites?) of each other.
• What do you think is the purpose of Isabella Thorpe in the novel?  How does she contrast Eleanor Tilney?

Like always, you should feel free to respond to anything that particularly interested you in the first 10 chapters of Northanger Abbey.  But here are some prompts to get you started thinking:

• Discuss conventions of the Gothic that Austen satirizes, especially in the opening chapter of the book.  Why do you think Austen chooses to begin the novel this way?
• Compare what you’ve read of Northanger Abbey so far with the excerpts we read from The Mysteries of Udolpho.  How do the two works differ in style, tone, characters, plot, etc?  Despite the differences, do you see any similarities between the works?
• Discuss Catherine’s first meeting with Mr. Tilney.  What’s interesting about the exchange they have?  Do you think Austen wants readers to see Mr. Tilney as funny and satirical or as condescending to Catherine?  You might also think about how these first impressions either change or stay the same as we meet Mr. Tilney again later.
• Consider the Thorpes versus the Tilneys.  Can these two families be considered “doubles” like the ones we often see in Gothic fiction?
• Discuss ways that Northanger Abbey is a novel about novels.  Would you consider the book an example of metafiction (a piece of fiction that is about fiction and fiction-writing and in which the book often self-consciously alludes to its own artificiality or status as fiction)?
• What about Austen’s humor?  Do you find the book funny?  Are there particular passages that you thought were especially humorous?

While you’re free to write about anything in the lengthy passages from Udolpho that you read for today, here are some prompts to get your started thinking:

• What kinds of things does St. Aubert try to teach Emily as she grows up?  (You might look especially at the passage in Chapter 1, Volume 1 that includes this phrase:  “He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind”)
• Talk about “bad relatives” in the novel.  Where do they appear?  What function do they serve?  You might also think of this trope in relation to popular fairy tales such as “Snow White” or “Cinderella”
• Consider Italy and the Italian background in the middle of the novel. How does Radcliffe present Italy and Italians?  We have not only Montoni, Count Morano, and the many Signori and armed men at the Castle of Udolpho, but you might remember that Mme. Quesnel (wife of Emily’s uncle, M. Quesnel) is also said to be Italian.  What does Italy seem to signify to Radcliffe?  Are there differences in the nature descriptions of France, where the St. Auberts initially reside, and Italy?
• What do you think about Radcliffe’s depiction of the lower classes in the novel (peasants, gypsies, banditti, servants, etc.)   You might especially consider Annette and Ludovico.
• Discuss the Castle of Udolpho itself.  Why do you think the Gothic form presents so many decaying castles, abbeys, etc.?  We’ve talked a bit about these buildings as supplying domestic spaces for female adventure, but some critics see labyrinthine passages and prisons as tied to nightmares and deep, Freudian-style fears and desires of the unconscious mind.  What are your thoughts, observations, about the castle itself and what it represents?