Q:Henry says of Mrs Allen,'What a picture of intellectual poverty'. Is this an accurate characterisation and why?
Austen has depicted characters that bring forward concerns such as lack of attention towards intellectual subjects and unnecessary concentration towards subjects somewhat irrelevant in the real world such as gothic novel stories.Characters such as Catherine and James Morland can be excused of such concerns as their naivety stems from lack of experience but one character that can not be excused is Mrs Allen who has in the past had many acquaintances outside of Fullerton yet has not grown intellectually.
Mrs Allen is the Morland's neighbour, who suggests on taking Catherine with her to Bath.She is described as 'a good tempered gentle woman, but neither beautiful, nor smart, nor accomplished, nor charming'. She is obsessed with fashion and her way of introducing Catherine into society is by dressing her well enough that she looks rich which speaks a lot of her companionship not being appropriate for a young lady as naive as Catherine. Furthermore she is incapable of independently making acquaintances and her mere expressions of her regret over Catherine not being able to dance are repeated so often with lack of action that eventually Catherine is eventually tired of listening to her.
Austen has depicted this 'intellectual poverty' in Mrs Allen clearly. It can be seen in numerous occasions throughout the novel, one of the first instances being her conversation with Mrs Thorpe, neither of them had any intelligent subject to go over one bragged of her children and one bragged of her gowns, neither paying much attention to what the other had to say. Another instance is when the Thorpes and James came to retrieve Catherine for an open carriage ride and while Catherine through eye contact, communicates to her take her side and disallow her from leaving, she is not able to gather the signals and gives her allowance in front of the very party she is trying to excuse herself from. Similarly at this moment Catherine needed someone to correct her judgement clouded by the greed of seeing a castle and Mrs Allen should have been a responsible adult and suggested against the trip but it is clear to the readers one can not expect sound judgment from Mrs Allen as she has no objection and even seems somewhat absent minded making her a very irresponsible ward to Catherine.
Mrs Allen's social conduct also displays her intellectual abilities when Catherine learns that she had spent the day with the Tilneys in Catherine's absence, she questions Mrs Allen about their family history but also being a bad listener or rather some one who only wants to listen to subjects of her interest, Mrs Allen remembered not much of the conversation besides that Eleanor inherited Mrs Tilney's pearls and so Mrs Allen assumed that at least one of the parents is dead and had no knowledge of Tilney's siblings or residence. Similarly she, like Catherine, is not a good judge of character since she lets Catherine be alone with Isabella while only having known her for a short time, and immediately considers Henry Tilney an agreeable man because he pleases her due to his knowledge of muslin. By now the readers are aware that she is not very observant and this might effect the Morland siblings as well.
When compared to Mr Allen we notice a stark contrast that makes us also question why he even married her. When Catherine relays the open carriage incident to Mr Allen he condemns it and advises against it due to the inappropriateness of it in polite society. While Mrs Allen repeats her husband's words she also adds her own opinion: that a dress can get dirty so easily and we realise she still does not perhaps understand the big picture and is bothered with her dresses alone. When Catherine is cast out of Northanger and the story is told to Mrs Allen her opinion of the General goes from 'very agreeable man' to 'I really have no patience with the General!' without a moment of contemplation as to what would have caused this disagreement. While she is recalling their time in Bath she is not able to recall what happened between Catherine and Henry but remembers very well what dress she was wearing. Thus Austen portrays a character that is changeable by neither circumstances nor experiences and it perhaps makes Catherine's development all the mere prominent because at least she learns from her mistakes and polishes her judgment through experience.
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English Literature 9695
Non-FictionThis is a compilation of all the essays and notes I wrote while I was in ALevels. It must be noted that not all of of these are A* material (though none goes lower than a grade B) so they aren't meant to be copy pasted for your school assignments. U...
