Introduction: Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility

Abstract

You are studying one of Jane Austen’s novels as a set text. It’s the first time you have come across anything by Jane Austen, you have read the novel through in an attempt to gain your own first impression and you are about to start studying it in more detail in preparation for writing an essay. You are confident about what happens in the story and you have formed opinions about the main characters, both what they are like and how you feel about them, and in spite of some difficulties with the novel’s language and the unfamiliar society it deals with you might be prepared to say what you think it’s ‘about’ in general terms. The problem now is where to start. How were those initial impressions gained and how do you select episodes from the whole novel which will illustrate your points?