Northanger Abbey 13-15: “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

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Catherine is finally standing up for herself and getting her way - much to John Thorpe's displeasure. There are still plenty of shenanigans afoot, though... Give in to all kinds of temptations in this episode, from the pedantic to the musical!

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 6 Episode 5 | Northanger Abbey 13-15: “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.

Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today we're reading chapters 13 through 15 of Northanger Abbey through the theme of temptation.

Emily: This is such a fun theme to do for this section.

Lauren: Especially given our opening chapter.

Emily: Oh my goodness.

Lauren: It was too perfect.

Emily: We just dove right in to The Temptation.

Lauren: As if we'd planned it, once again.

Emily: I know. You know, these tarot cards have really been treating us right.

Lauren: You know, there's power in tarot, and who knew that it could also apply to selecting applicable themes to a Jane Austen podcast.

And so we have three chapters that have some interesting developments over the course of these pages that I'm excited to dive into. I think this is going to be a fun episode.

Emily: I think so too. So I guess we should go ahead and get started with recaps.

Lauren: We should indeed. And it gets to be you.

Emily: Yay.

Lauren: Okay. You have, as always, 30 seconds on the clock. Three, two, one, go.

Emily: So Catherine schedules a makeup walk with the Tilneys, but John freaking Thorpe and Isabella and James want to finally take their wild ride on the same day. And so he goes and cancels on the Tilneys without her knowledge. So Catherine follows them because she assumes that he's probably just lied about it.

she's mad at him, but they do have their walk after all, and the other three, end up going to Clifton. it turns out Mr. Tilney is very into novels and also being pedantic, but on the Clifton trip, James proposes to Isabella. [00:02:00]

Lauren: Yes! You made it!

Emily: I did! Are you ready to try your hand at the recap?

Lauren: I hope so.

Emily: All right. Three, two, one. Go.

Lauren: Catherine is sorely tempted to listen to her friends and be the nice, pleasant, pliable girl they want her to be, but she is determined that she is going to go on her walk with the Tilneys even when John Thorpe is rude and cancels her plans without her knowledge. And she runs off to the Tilneys to say that it was all a lie and General Tilney.

And she rises in his good graces as well. The three of them go on their ride. She goes on a walk with, the two Tilneys, John Thorpe, or not John Thorpe, Henry, and God! James and Isabella get engaged at the end.

The panic I have with names once the countdown starts going down, I was like, oh no, oh no. Suddenly I don't know anyone's name.

Emily: Yeah, for those who have never witnessed us, on video doing one of these, we're timing each other. As we hit the five second mark, we hold up a countdown, which is where you start to hear the panic enter the voice, and both of us, like, without fail, we start to flail, like, physically.

It's, it's honestly very funny.

Lauren: If only we had the resources for a video podcast. But maybe not, because I like being able to look like a hermit in my house as we record.

Emily: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Haha. But this was not necessarily, like, an eventful section in terms of things actively happening, but I feel like it, it gave us a lot anyway.

Lauren: It did. If we were to write the actual events down on paper, it wouldn't be very eventful, but we do get a lot of really juicy interactions that we get to dive into and dissect. So it's not the most eventful. section ever, but it does offer a lot to talk about.

Emily: It does. And I think this is also going to be another one where we really incorporate that theme discussion into our general [00:04:00] conversation.

Lauren: 100 percent, especially given that the opening of chapter 13 is just Isabella, James, and John pestering Catherine to get her to change her mind. And she is tempted to do so.

Emily: It's like two full pages of them trying to talk her out of this walk that she has planned with the Tilneys so that she can go to Clifton with them.

Even though there's nothing stopping them from changing their plan to a different day. Apparently, John might go into town the day after. He hasn't made up his mind about this.

Lauren: Whereas Catherine actually has concrete plans that she's already made.

Emily: Yes, but they are wheedling, they're making arguments. Once she has denied them a couple of times, Isabella takes a different tack and starts, reproaching her for abandoning her best and oldest friends, who she's known, like, what, maybe a few weeks?

Lauren: Yeah, tops.

Emily: Being grown cold and indifferent towards herself. It's just... Absolutely absurd. And you know, it's, it's a pretty valiant attempt at temptation of Catherine, but she already feels that she has slighted the Tilneys unintentionally once, but she has slighted the Tilneys and is not going to go back on her word a second time.

Lauren: Yeah. And she, is resolute in her decision, but is also tempted to try and make things better. Because as determined as she is to make things right with the Tilneys and not go back on her decision, she also doesn't want to be the difficult one, which is what her friends are making her out to be. And so she tries to come up with a compromise so that she can maybe make things better.

And that's when she proposes a different day, but that's the day that they cannot do because maybe John could be going into town and so [00:06:00] that won't do. But you can see her, although she doesn't really waver, she feels deeply uncomfortable in that decision because she's used to being the one who makes other people happy.

And when she's actually doing something to make herself happy, she's then tempted to say, well, I guess if it's easier for other people, then it's fine. I'll just put up with it.

Emily: I so deeply relate to this sentiment, both to Catherine feeling morally like she needs to stand her ground and to the temptation of just giving in, especially when one of your friends is actively trying to manipulate you into changing your mind.

That's terrible behavior, Isabella.

Lauren: Isabella is trying every tactic in the book to see if she can get Catherine to change her mind and is very transparent in doing so because she changes tack as soon as she sees that one method isn't working. That if it's, if it won't work through saying, 'Oh, Catherine, please. It'll be so fun. Don't you want to come and have fun with all four of us?' Then I'll make you feel poorly about yourself if you don't say yes to me and see if that works.

Emily: It's not a good look. But Catherine does stand her ground. Until, John goes off for a few minutes, comes back, and announces that he's made her excuses to the Tilneys instead, and said that she had remembered a prior engagement, and she is completely affronted by this, because it was not a prior engagement.

Her walk with the Tilneys was now the prior engagement, and she's, she's really freaking mad at him. And also, reasonably, assumes that he may very well just be lying about... Either the fact that he talked to the Tilneys, or whatever he may have told them.

Lauren: Right. And she is very right to be suspicious about this, because as we have seen, he's nothing close to trustworthy at all.

And so Catherine immediately tries to go and run after the Tilneys, but Isabella and her brother try to stop her as well as John [00:08:00] Thorpe, because they're now satisfied because they've gotten what they wanted from Catherine, whether she gave it to them willingly or not. And they say, okay, perfect. Now everything's been settled.

Your excuses have been made. Everything's great. Now you can just come with us. And they physically restrain her from running after the Tilney's and Catherine breaks away and power walks to their house because John Thorpe tries to tell her, no, it's no use going after them. They were already on their way home.

They'll be home by the time you catch up with them anyway. And Catherine does not care. He's already messed things up for her once and he is not going to mess them up again.

Emily: And she does indeed succeed in-- well, she catches up to the Tilneys at their house and has to be she literally just, like, pushes in past the servant right after them and, like, lets herself in because she's so determined to make sure that things are right between them.

which, again, very relatable. but we have such a lovely juxtaposition of reactions to these kinds of behavior. Because, well, for one, it turns out that John had been telling the truth, that he had told the Tilneys that she had a prior engagement, which is still a lie to them, but whatever. She straightens things out, lets them know that they were actually her choice, that she did not tell John Thorpe to go and make her excuses.

And then when they invite her, entreat her really, to stay to dinner and to visit afterwards, she has to make her excuses because the Allens are going to be expecting her. And they're like, "Oh, of course, we would never impose on their expectations for you. We'll, we'll have dinner another time."

Lauren: Night and day. It's that easy. Actual manners versus people who have no class.

Emily: Were you raised in a barn?

Lauren: Evidently. John Thorpe may have been.

Emily: Seriously. With the obsession with horses, maybe.

Lauren: You know what? [00:10:00] You might be onto something.

This has recommended her to Henry, to Miss Tilney, and to General Tilney, who sees her out and pays her a compliment on her way out the door, and even Catherine's step is a little bit lighter on her way back home.

Emily: Because he has particularly complimented the elasticity of her walk.

Lauren: Oh goodness. I love the line that says, "Catherine, delighted by all that had passed, proceeded gaily to Pulteney Street, walking, as she concluded, with great elasticity."

Emily: "...though she had never thought of it before."

Lauren: I love that. And she makes it home without running into either her brother or to the Thorpes, so she can go home and find a little bit of peace.

Emily: She also then does feel validated by her choice to throw off the Thorpes in this particular instance because Mr. Allen expresses his opinion that essentially, they're kind of a bad influence and that it would have been unseemly for her to go riding about the countryside in an open carriage with a young man.

Lauren: And Catherine is confused as to why he's never voiced any kind of... Displeasure with this before, and she asks him, 'would you have just let me leave and just expose myself in such a manner?' And he says, yeah, pretty much, you know, young people are going to do what they're going to do. So I maybe would have said something that had gotten out of hand, but yeah.

Emily: So it's clearly not that much of a problem. It's not a reputation ruining thing, but maybe it's one of those things that's like a slippery slope.

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: It's a gateway drug.

Lauren: Like, are you sure you've been, you should be drinking Dr. Pepper. I think that's really going to--

Emily: Not the Dr. Pepper!

Lauren: Youth group core.

Emily: Oh my goodness. But that does give her sort of a foundation to stand on should there be further, entreaties to go writing about in open carriages with Mr. Thorpe.

Lauren: And it also soothes her anxieties that [00:12:00] maybe she should have just said yes to her friends, because thinking about her Gothic novel heroines once again, isn't a sacrifice noble? And shouldn't she have sacrificed her own happiness for the happiness of the group? But thankfully she comes to the conclusion that no, she should not, and she should go and have her walk with the Tilneys.

Emily: Which she does, and it brings a little unexpected joy, because she... mentions reading novels and then sort of self deprecates a little about that fact. And you know, demurs that, oh, surely Mr. Tilney won't be the kind of person who reads novels. gentlemen read better books. And he says, "the person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid."

Lauren: the quote heard through the ages.

Emily: Absolutely. And then he goes on to praise particularly the Gothic genre of which Catherine is so fond.

Lauren: And he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Gothic novel heroines as well. So he makes a passing comment of, "do not imagine that you can cope with me and a knowledge of Julia's and Louisa's," which is a reference to the fact that between 1760 and 1798, according to my excellent footnote, once again, there were at least 19 novels published in London with either the name Julia or Louisa and a featured position in the title, which is an ample testament to Henry's knowledge of contemporary fiction.

Emily: All right, the man has the knowledge to back it up.

Lauren: He does. He knows what he's talking about.

Emily: Although, he is getting a little, 'if you were a real fan.'

Lauren: I know, right?

Emily: Name five of their albums.

Lauren: I just keep imagining it as the equivalent to, like, a man, if you were a real fan, like the Twilight Saga.

Emily: That's hilarious.

Lauren: I don't know if you really understand the intricacies of the dynamics between Bella and Jacob and Renesmee.

It's just, it's really over your head.

Emily: And do you even know all of the werewolves names?

Lauren: I mean, come on.

Emily: Unfortunately, Mr. Tilney also reveals something of a pedantic streak. And according [00:14:00] to his sister, this is not a new feature.

Lauren: No, it's very normal, and it's also such a fun look at sibling dynamics, too, because it's hard to write siblings well, but you can tell when somebody who is a sibling is writing siblings, because you just get at those intricacies in dialogue and conversation that reveal Inside jokes or stories that they clearly tell each other in their relationship or different ways that they tease one another. Because Henry is teasing his sister relentlessly throughout this conversation to the point where she has to say, 'I need you to explain what you're doing because Catherine is going to think that you were extremely rude if you don't provide some context.'

Emily: It's, it's very good.

Lauren: The funniest passage of that, I think, is when they are still discussing Gothic novels, and there's been a little bit of a lull in the conversation, and then Catherine says that there is a great terror coming to London, by which, you know, she of course is only referring to a book that's probably going to be very bad, but Miss Tilney doesn't understand that that's what she's talking about.

And she's taking her very literally, which is an interesting role reversal because usually it's Catherine who's taking things literally and doesn't understand the nuance of what people are talking about. And so they're talking past one another. And so when Miss Tilney asks about the supposed horror that's coming to London.

And Catherine says, "that I do not know, nor who is the author," author should be the key point here, but you could also be the author of the scheme of whatever. And she says, "I've only heard that it's to be more horrible than anything we have met with yet." To which Ms. Tilney responds, "good heaven, where could you hear such a thing?"

And they go back and forth for a while until Henry finally says, am I going to have to be the one to point this out to the two of you what's going on? Do neither of you see what's happening?

Emily: And finally explains to his sister that Catherine's talking about a book that's going to be published and he knows exactly what [00:16:00] the book is that's coming out.

I feel so bad for his sister.

Lauren: Especially because he says, "and you, Miss Morland, my stupid sister has mistaken all your clearest expressions." Like, dang!

Emily: Wow.

Lauren: It says, "She immediately pictured to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling in St. George's fields. The bank attacked. The tower threatened. The streets of London flowing with blood. A detachment of the 12th Light Dragoons, the hopes of the nation, called up from Northampton to quell the insurgents, and the gallant Captain Frederick Tilney, in the moment of charging at the head of his troop, knocked off his horse by a brick bat from an upper window."

Emily: The drama of it all! I love that he and John Thorpe are both clearly inclined in some way towards dramatics, but Tilney's approach is, you know, gently mocking.

And in this context, it's not like in front of a whole audience of people. It's in a rather intimate setting with just one other person and his sister with whom he is clearly very close. Whereas John Thorpe is just, he's just a bully. He just wants attention and he wants to get his own way.

Lauren: And is uncaring of potentially humiliating people in public situations. If he can get what he wants.

Emily: He will use that to his advantage without question.

Lauren: And without regret. But all in all, they have a very pleasant walk. It turns out to be a very good decision to stand her ground, to refuse her friends and to enjoy this time with the Tilneys, because they passed such a pleasant morning that she hardly even thinks about her friends who are off on whatever ride or drive they're off to. She's just been enjoying herself and enjoying the conversation and feeling like a valued member of the party instead of having to be subjected to John Thorpe talking at her and being miserable for the duration of their trip.

Emily: And when she sees those other friends the next day, it turns out that first off, [00:18:00] not only did they not even go to Blaise castle, which was the only reason she was inclined to go anyway--

Lauren: the castle, that's not really a castle.

Emily: It's not a castle. also it was the very convenient setting for Isabella and James Morland becoming engaged.

Lauren: You know who saw that coming?

Emily: Not Catherine.

Lauren: Just everybody else.

Emily: Yes. Isabella starts her preamble to the announcement, assuming, as she always does, that Catherine has seen right through her.

She knows everything that's going on. And Catherine's response is, you're in love with my brother?

Lauren: Go a step further.

Emily: Yeah. Just keep, keep going.

Lauren: Keep going. Keep it up. You're almost there. She doesn't even know anything's going on when she first receives a note from Isabella to come over because she's just glad that everything seems to have been smoothed over because when they had parted ways last time, Isabella was in a sour mood.

They'd unlinked arms. Catherine had run away from them to go tell the Tilneys what was up. And so they've not spoken since then. But Isabella sends her a very warm and pleasant note, and so Catherine goes to pay her visit the next day, thinking, okay, great, maybe all is well and this friendship will still be repaired.

Oh, it's more than repaired because Isabella is nothing but happy because now she and Catherine will be sisters.

Emily: Even to the point where she's ready to throw aside her own sisters in favor of Catherine.

Lauren: Ma'am, calm down.

Emily: But, yeah, that, that takes up, basically, the rest of this final chapter is the announcement, and then the frantic...

You know, planning and celebration and James writing off home to get his parents' approval, which, you know, Isabella is absolutely sick with worry about. It's completely fine. Their parents are totally happy about it.

Lauren: But that is one of the things that endears her to Catherine more, because as she's sick with worry over whether or not she'll be approved. Of course she will.

She, of course, [00:20:00] is waxing poetic to anyone who will hear her, which in this case is Catherine, because she's kind of a captive audience. And she's saying how much she loves James and that even if he were penniless, she would still marry him because fortune isn't a question. She's just so in love with him.

And Catherine thinks that that's very much like what one of her Gothic novel heroines would say. And it's such a commendation of sensibility that, you know, she likes Isabelle a bit more just for that.

Emily: Mm hmm. But just before the chapter wraps up, John Thorpe pauses before Catherine leaves and has a conversation that both of them think they understand perfectly.

Catherine is like, this is nothing of consequence. He's just seeing how I feel in a very general sense about the concept of marriage and I think it's lovely. And John Thorpe thinks, she's ready for me to propose.

Lauren: She's encouraged me. What a way to end, end this chapter and the first volume of the book.

Emily: Yep.

Lauren: But just the total body cringe that one experiences when you read those passages is just, oh, incomparable.

Emily: It's extremely bad.

Lauren: And it is, you can see exactly where both of them are going wrong in their interpretation of the conversation. So, for example, when he's asking-- before he even gets to asking about marriage, he asks if she, if she is going to be happy to see him again.

And she says, "Oh dear, not at all. There are very few people I am sorry to see. Company is always cheerful." Again, she's speaking generally. So will she be happy to see him again? Sure. You know, she's happy to see anybody because that means that she has some company.

And he says, "Oh, that is just my way of thinking. Give me but a little cheerful company. Let me only have the company of the people I love. Let me be only where I like and with whom I like, and the devil take the rest, say I, and I am heartily glad to hear you say the same."

So he has now decided to interpret that [00:22:00] as, yes, we are alike. We are aligned in this way. And that's another reason why we should be aligned in marriage as well, where all Catherine said was, yeah, I'd be happy to see you. I'm happy to see everybody I see. And no, already.

Emily: Right at the start of this conversation, he burst out with, "a famous good thing, this marrying scheme, upon my soul. A clever fancy of Morland's and Bell's. What do you think of it, miss Morland? I say it is no bad notion." And she responds, "I am sure I think it a very good one." Again. In completely general terms.

Lauren: Or thinking about, you know, their siblings' marriage.

Emily: Yes. Because he is working on multiple layers of assumption that have not been explicitly communicated to Catherine as, as we have seen, she needs someone to say it out loud in as many words.

So she has no idea that that's what this conversation is about.

Lauren: Not at all. He thinks that she's noticed that he's been paying her special attention, that he's been trying to make sure that they can spend time together, which she hates, which she's been seeing as an, as an imposition, not as welcoming his attentions at all.

And she doesn't also really pick up on the fact that when he goes in that previous section to tell General Tilney how highly he thinks of Catherine, she kind of picks up on it as like a, 'Hmm. That's interesting,' but mostly she thinks, 'oh good, then he'll have a good opinion of me.' Not realizing that that good opinion would have come from somebody not so subtly trying to stake his claim on Catherine.

Emily: John is gross and I hate him.

Lauren: Yeah. Agreed. Even his sisters don't like him. The one sister who got to go in the carriage with them because Catherine didn't get to go is talking about how John didn't want to drive a different sister because she has fat ankles.

What?

Emily: I hate this man.

Lauren: The worst. The worst.

Emily: I will not be upset if something deeply Gothic happens to him.

Lauren: That is such a wonderful description.

Emily: Thank you.

Lauren: That is, that is the end of the chapter, end of the [00:24:00] section, and the first volume in the original edition, where John Thorpe left him to the undivided consciousness of his own happy address and her explicit encouragement.

In his eyes, of course.

Emily: I think we're differing on the definitions of explicit here. And also encouragement.

Lauren: I would agree. Mm hmm.

Emily: But, he has indeed given into the temptation of seeing what he wants to see in Catherine's behavior.

Lauren: 100%.

Emily: It seems like this is a pattern for him.

Lauren: Maybe.

Emily: Just maybe a little bit.

Lauren: Just perhaps. Yep. I think that is an excellent retrospective of all the events of the chapter. Do we want to move into historical topics?

Emily: Yes, let's.

Lauren: Oh, let's do it.

Emily: All right. Webster's Dictionary...

Lauren: what?

Emily: After that little, pedantic aside from Henry Tilney, I wanted to talk about dictionaries.

Lauren: Incredible.

Continue.

Emily: I'm glad that that really stupid transition paid off.

Lauren: Okay, so Webster's Dictionary.

Emily: I forgot to write down the actual,definition.

Lauren: Goodbye!

Emily: But that's not the point! For one, Webster's is an explicitly American English dictionary, so I won't be talking about it at all. I, I was very excited to have this connection to be able to talk about because, in case somehow anyone missed it, I'm a linguistics nerd.

So talking about this kind of thing is an absolute joy to me. Hopefully I will do it with a little less pedantry than Henry Tilney.

Lauren: Perhaps.

Emily: Perhaps. but let's start with the oldest known dictionaries, which are actually bilingual cuneiform word lists in Sumerian and Akkadian from about 2300 BC. the earliest monolingual dictionary is [00:26:00] Chinese from the 3rd century BC.

We don't see dictionaries involving the English language until glossaries of French or Spanish or Latin to help with, you know, translation. the word dictionary was coined in 1220 by the author John of Garland, for his work Dictionarius, which was to help with Latin diction. The first purely English and alphabetically organized dictionary was not published until 1604.

It was called A Table Alphabeticall by the schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey, but it's many imitators and the work itself were generally seen as very unreliable and they were definitely not definitive. There are many thousands of words in the English language.

Lauren: I was about to say, is that just people literally sitting down and writing down every word that they know?

Emily: Essentially. Yeah. A lot of these earlier ones focused on hard words. so especially, specialty vocabulary, jargon, for particular fields of work, especially, you know, law dictionaries, things like that by 1754, which is less than 50 years before this, this book was written, Philip Stanhope was lamenting the lack of standardization in English that other languages were achieving because of overarching organizations, like the Academy Francaise or the Real Academia Española that were.

collecting word lists, essentially, and standardizing spellings. They were standardizing definitions. They were standardizing grammatical usage. English didn't have that. Except it was in the process of becoming real because partially under Stanhope's patronage, in 1755, the very next year, Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language, which is very commonly assumed to be the first English dictionary, which really [00:28:00] just speaks to its impact, but it was the first that we know of to both arrange words alphabetically and include textual references for the entries.

It took Johnson seven years to compile the dictionary. He was doing most of that work alone, he only employed clerical assistants to copy the quotations he had chosen to give examples.

And its creation was actually motivated by a group of London booksellers who wanted to capitalize on an increasingly literate public to finally standardize a lot of these definitions and spellings. Johnson's approach was really meticulous in documenting like actual usage, but he did tend toward some conservatism linguistically and some more traditional spellings, words that we don't spell in the same way today because it was the 18th century.

He also took a very different approach from those previous lexicographers who focused more on difficult words or commonly misused words. and he did try to describe the English language as it was generally used, but he did not refrain completely from his own commentary, and whimsical one offs and things like that.

For example, he defined a lexicographer as, "a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words."

Lauren: Sir.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. So not, not completely professional. not the lexicographic standards we have today.

Lauren: I mean, after seven years, I think I would up myself a little bit too, you know, you gotta have some.

Emily: I do have some questionable asides in my dissertation, like, and I'm not trying to write a definitive dictionary of the English language.

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: Yep. But this publication was also physically large and very expensive. The pages measured 18 by 20 inches. And each copy, which was in [00:30:00] multiple volumes, cost about sixteen hundred pounds, which was more than Johnson was actually paid to write it.

So this was not an accessible thing.

Lauren: I cannot, I cannot imagine. not even recouping my labor in the production of one of those books. That's just, that's wild.

Emily: Yeah. So this first 1755 edition had 42, 773 entries and was actually updated several times during Johnson's life. That was vastly more coverage than any of the previous attempts at dictionaries had covered. They would contain maybe a few thousand, seven or 8, 000 entries. And he was also super meticulous. The entry for put, like to put something on or put something down, covered three pages.

Lauren: What was he saying?

Emily: A lot, evidently. But it was, it was so comprehensive that it was the English language standard for more than 150 years, because the Oxford Dictionary didn't begin publication until 1884, and it was in installments, so it wasn't fully published for more than 50 years. It's now obviously overtaken Johnson's Dictionary because it's updated like every few months by a dedicated team of professional lexicographers.

But that dictionary, as well as all future ones, at least in English, stayed really consistent with Johnson's decisions on the scope and structure of what you'd cover in a dictionary.

Lauren: That is so cool. Thank you.

Emily: You're welcome. Yeah. So Henry Tilney is clearly a fan of Johnson's Dictionary. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah.

It is wild to think about the fact that for the first dictionary to exist, someone somewhere in some corner of the globe had to sit down and say, you know what I'm going to do for the next conceivable amount of time? Sit down and write down literally every word I know.

Emily: Yeah, [00:32:00] it's not surprising to me at all that a comprehensive and professionalized dictionary is such a recent invention.

Lauren: Oh, absolutely. Because how else would we have been doing that before? Wild. Thank you so much. That was fascinating.

Emily: I had a lot of fun reading about dictionary history.

Lauren: That is very on brand.

Emily: Yes. What do you have for pop

culture today for us?

Lauren: probably an equally on brand connection.

Oh, good. so I'm going back to the well of song lyrics for this, but not to my usual well of like a Taylor Swift or like a different contemporary group that I know. I decided for this section, I was going to use lyrics from The Temptations.

Emily: Ooh, very nice. All right.

Lauren: All right. It was too perfect to pass up.

Emily: Yeah, truly.

Lauren: And also the Temptations have some hits, man. I mean, the fact that they still have songs that we sing today? Staying power. Today's girls could never. Anyway, not like the Temptations were girls. You know what I mean, it's an expression. so I have a couple that I feel like match some situations or some characters from these first couple chapters of Northanger Abbey, some funnier than others.

the first one is perfect for, for dear Catherine. "It's just my imagination."

Emily: Aww.

Lauren: All of these, I'm sure most of them, the second one everyone absolutely has heard before. Most of them, depending on what music either you listened to growing up or your parents had you listening to, you may or may not know, but I would encourage you to listen to all of them.

Look them up on Spotify, The Temptations are great. so this one is "just my imagination." The parenthetical is "running away with me," which Catherine's imagination does without fail. And so the, the lyrics to this are kind of applicable, but, you know, just change the scenario as you see fit to fit Catherine instead.

The first section of the song is, "each day through my window/ I watch her as she passes by/ I say to myself You're such a lucky guy/ to have a girl like her is truly a dream come [00:34:00] true/ Out of all the fellows in the world, she belongs to me/ but it was just my imagination /Running away with me/ It was just my imagination running away with me.

Oh, soon we'll be married and raise a family./ A cozy little home out in the country with two children./ Maybe three./ I tell you, I can visualize it all. This couldn't be a dream. Far too real, it all seems./ But it was just my imagination once again." If that's not Catherine dreaming of a home with Henry Tilney when she's had one conversation with him.

Like, I'm such a lucky girl. He barely knows you. So that is, that is my first one for dear Catherine, "Just My Imagination." And then the second one, which is the song that everyone and their mother knows. And if you do not know this song, I have questions. It's "My Girl."

Emily: Oh yeah.

Lauren: Exactly. Like, not, not you specifically, but like you as in general listenership.

How have you not heard the song, My Girl? Where have you been?

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: This could be specifically like James thinking of Isabella now that they're all loved up and starry eyed for one another. given the last passage, you know, it could also be John Thorpe thinking about Catherine being completely oblivious to the fact that she is not, in fact, his girl.

but, you know, just to refresh your memory. And you can maybe hear the melody in the background as I read the lyrics, because Lord already knows I will not be singing them for you for everyone's benefit. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day/ when it's cold outside/ I've got the month of May. I guess you'd say/ what can make me feel this way? My girl.

It's just such a lovely song that just encapsulates the feeling of just like being head over heels in love. Like, I've got so much honey, the bees envy me. I've got a sweeter song than the birds and the trees. You know, what can make me feel this way? My girl, I'm talking about my girl.

Emily: I definitely think this is more of a James and Isabella song.

Lauren: 100%.

Emily: I don't think John has that [00:36:00] much affection in his body.

Lauren: No, this is for the two starry eyed, soon to be newlyweds, for sure. They are head over heels for one another. And then the third one, which I just find really funny, mostly due to the title, is "I Wish It Would Rain." And this one really would be John Thorpe hoping it'll rain so that Catherine can't go with the Tilneys.

And what makes it even more perfect is that the first stanza is "sunshine, blue skies, please go away./ My girl has found another and gone away/ with her went my future. And my life is filled with gloom./ So day after day, I stay locked up in my room./ I know to you, it might sound strange,/ but I wish it would rain."

Emily: That's definitely John.

Lauren: I just picked those three because I thought they were so perfect. And also when we were talking about having temptation as a theme, and I was thinking of a pop culture connection, I was like, The Temptations. Perfect. So, that is, that is my pop culture connection for today. Song lyrics by The Temptations to fit several of the scenarios that we've seen in Northanger Abbey so far, and I hope it inspires you to go back and listen to The Temptations again.

Emily: I am definitely at least going to have My Girl stuck in my head for the rest of the night.

Lauren: Yeah, same.

Emily: It's such a good song.

Lauren: It's, it's a great song. That's it. That's all I got.

Emily: That was wonderful.

Lauren: Thank you. Thank you. I think that means we're in final takeaway area.

Emily: It's you up first.

Lauren: I spent entirely too long in Lutheran school because Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear temptation is the Lord's prayer.

Emily: Yup.

Lauren: And, and so I think my final takeaway is not necessarily lead us not into temptation, but if you are firm in your own convictions, and you know that you have made a decision that feels right to you for a reason, to not be tempted to make other people happy by changing your mind and making yourself more uncomfortable.

To do what's right for you [00:38:00] instead.

Emily: Well, you took my final takeaway and--

Lauren: you know, it's been a while since we did that to one another. So it was bound to happen eventually.

Emily: All right. What's my final takeaway then, now that I have to come up with a new one? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to rephrase and cherry pick from yours and say that following your own conviction and desire, is.

Hopefully going to make you happier than giving into, yeah, the temptation of people pleasing, which I think is just identical to what you said. But that was, it was such a strong, a strong message in this section that, what else?

Lauren: I think it makes sense that we both have the same takeaway. Yeah. And that's a pretty, pretty major one.

We make the rules. We can do what we want.

Emily: Yeah, we do make the rules. This is our podcast.

Lauren: Sometimes we have to remind ourselves of that.

Emily: Yeah, we do. Well, shall we go ahead and pull our tarot?

Lauren: We shall. Our next card is the Two of Diamonds.

Emily: The Two of Diamonds is Adaptability. Charlotte makes the best of her choices in Pride and Prejudice by marrying Mr. Collins to avoid becoming a financial burden on her parents.

Lauren: I'm 27 years old. I have no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents and I'm frightened.

Emily: You know, I think. I think I already know what the title needs to be for next episode. I think it has to be Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

Lauren: Correct.

Emily: Yeah. All right. I hope you guys look forward to seeing that one in two weeks.[00:40:00]

Lauren: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading Chapter 16 through 18 of Northanger Abbey through the lens of adaptability.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the full that catalog and link to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at Reclaiming Jane Pod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show Art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: See you next time, nerds.

Emily: I don't know werewolves names.

Lauren: I did in 2008. Not anymore.

Emily: Yeah, I might have at one point.

Lauren: Lauren, 15 years ago, had that locked away. Lauren in 2023 does not. Yep.

Emily: Yep. 2008 Emily was deeply invested in Twilight. Not so much anymore. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.