Summary:
This essay seeks to show that Austen's use of free indirect discourse not only serves to heighten the satirical effect of her Gothic parody, but also creates an imagined community with her readers.
The use of free indirect discourse in Northanger Abbey
"The novel as a whole is a phenomenon multiform in style and variform, in speech and voice. In it the investigator is confronted with several heterogeneous stylistic unities, often located on different linguistic levels and subject to different stylistic controls." p 261
-"Discourse in the Novel", M.M. Bahktin
The novel as a genre, is defined by a multitude of languages and dialects, which, broken down on the various spectrums of type, from proper to colloquial speech, class, and age is essential for the novel to in fact be a genre. Furthermore, the author is a sort of conductor who orchestrates, organizes even, the various languages, dialects, and voices of the novel, thereby creating its characteristic features. One characteristic feature in Austen's Northanger Abbey is the use of free indirect discourse......
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