Jane Austen

Catherine Morland is a pretty girl at the age of seventeen. At the first chapter of then book we get to know that she was always more like a boy than a girl. She was always rather fond of boys-games and had not the tastes girl were expected to have. She wasn’t particularly fond of gardens or drawing and her abilities were not the strongest in the world. She couldn’t learn anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid.(NB,37) She’s also described as having an awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong feat ures.(NB,37) But with the time Catherine’s appearances change. She grows more and more beautiful and gradually more fond of girls things . she begins to dress and style like a girl and she grows even considerably smart. But there are other character traits of Catherine that are even more important. These character traits are not the ones she gained with time, for they are also mentioned in the first chapter. She is described as having neither a bad heart nor a bad temper; was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome and very kind to little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny (NB,37). Although after this characterization of her the rather bad parts of her character are described, they don’t seem to be of much importance as she loses them with the time anyway. But these positive character traits are the ones that are important for my analysis.

I formerly mentioned that she’s at the age of seventeen a considerably pretty girl. Just in this year her neighbours Mr. And Mrs. Allen propose to take her to Bath with them. Catherine is allowed to go with them as her parents are generally very easy about that kind of things. In fact this is the first time that Catherine comes out of her town to see the rest of the world, for to a young girl Bath was in fact the rest of the world at these times. It is Bath that much of Catherine’s character is revealed, because there she meets with Isabella Thorpe, a character so completely the opposite of her own.