Blog Post #2 Northanger Abbey

He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgmnet than Henry's, she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicablity of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what his fatehr was at? (Chapter 26, page 198)

Last week, we talked about every character's identity as a reader. Not only did we talk about how those characters were as readers of books, but also how they were as readers of people, of social norms, and of the society's expectations.

Here in this excerpt, we can clearly tell that Catherine is puzzled by failing to read the General's unspoken intentions. At the point where the excerpt comes from, the General declared a trip to Woodston. He promised to take Catherine and Eleanor to visit Henry's place. When he and Henry were figuring out the date for this trip, the General said, "There is no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out of your way. Whatever you may happen to have in the house will be enough. I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance for a bachelor's table" (page 196-197). Catherine heard that, and she was surprized by Henry's leaving. She told Henry, according to the General, there's no preperation in advance needed. However, Henry insisted his father had a higher expectation than he claimed (what's interesting is that, the General clearly has higher expectations than the ladies do in temrs of the food, but his speech indicated the opposite). Although during her days in Bath, Catherine has picked up some "hidden curriculum" from the people she interacted with, she was still learning how to interpret what people actually mean under their speech.