Austen introduces her heroine in a remarkable manner. The focus is on Catherine Morland's plainness and her rather unimportant situation in life. She is in fact introduced as a Gothic Literature anti-heroine. "The standard heroine of a sentimental Gothic novel was refined, accomplished, unassailably virtous, and, of course, fount of sensibility" (Ehrenpreis, 13). Her 'thin, awkward figure," "inattentiveness" and "occasional stupidity"(Austen, 7) provides great potential for improving. Catherine's maturation process starts when she steps out of …showed first 75 words of 2043 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2043 total…Pride and Prejudice". The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. Eds. Edward Copeland & Juliet McMaster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Castle, Terry. Boss Ladies, Watch out! Essasy on women, Sex and Writing. New York: Routledge, 2002. Ehrenpreis, Henry. "Introduction". Northager Abbeyby Jane Austen. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998. Morgan, Susan J. "From Guessing for Ourselves' in Northanger Abbey" Jane Austen: Critical Assessments. Ed. Ian Littlewood. Mountfield, sussex: Helm Information, 1998. Wallace, T.G. Jane Austen and Narritive Authority.Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.