In the opening pages of Northanger Abbey, the narrator explicitly describes the novel’s protagonist, seventeen-year-old Catherine, as distinctly lacking in the sort of qualities usually associated with the heroines of gothic or romantic fiction: She is from an ordinary family in a small English town, and she is neither especially beautiful nor talented. In introducing Catherine in this fashion, the narrator immediately sets up the humorous contrast between Catherine’s mundane life and character and the melodramatic and macabre tales she enjoys reading. While this vein of humor will be important throughout the novel, it also introduces some of the novel’s key thematic preoccupations, such as the difference between fantasy and fact, or between appearances versus reality.

Due to her youth and rather naïve personality, Catherine has many lessons to learn over the course of the novel. When Catherine goes to Bath early in the novel, she is unaware of the oftentimes hypocritical nature of high society, which initially leaves her vulnerable to the manipulations of people like Isabella and John Thorpe. As a huge fan of Gothic novels, Catherine often imagines herself as a heroine on a thrilling adventure, which makes it difficult for her to distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction.