The Architecture of Space-Time in the Novels of Jane Austen by Ruta Baublyté Kaufmann

Author:Ruta Baublyté Kaufmann
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The passage shows Catherine is cured of her gothic fantasies and, as Johnston puts it, she starts wishing for “a more concise and comprehensible residence than the Gothic, which is fraught with misleading objects” (NA 198). The process advances with their visit to Henry’s parsonage and Catherine’s emotional acceptance of this space (NA 220) that is later to become her home. Gothic images of an abbey in her head are supplanted by the prettiness of a cottage “among the trees” and “the windows reaching to the ground” with a view over meadows (NA 220). Woodston is presented as an idyllic and pastoral space with its “puppies just able to roll about.” young shrubs, meadows, and fresh air (NA 220–221). The house itself is seen through the enthusiastic eyes of Catherine who appreciates its “honest simplicity” and prettiness (NA 220). In Woodston she finds her new dream home, much closer to her authentic self than the image of a gothic abbey.

Noticeably, Catherine begins to appreciate something that reminds her of her childhood home space, even though her imagination is still busy at work by transforming her original home image into something “better.” Her excursion to the adventurous world of wild fantasies is over; she starts to appropriate the familiar cyclicity of living in a parsonage, though, preferably, in an “improved” one. Thus, for her adult home, Catherine finds an equivalent space to her childhood house: she does not really make a linear step in social or psychological sense, but learns to recognize her “comfort zone” and stays within it.

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