Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817), Henry Tilney exhibits an unusual interest in women's dress, claiming to "understand muslins" and announcing his predilection for muslins of the "true Indian" variety. This essay examines how Henry's consumerist tastes are informed by his patriarchal privilege as well as Britain's imperial practices. A self-proclaimed "excellent judge" of the market, Henry distinguishes genuine Indian textiles from their cheaper counterfeits and deploys this expertise to discriminate between honest women and pretentious coquettes. Henry's regulatory tactics replicate the imperial strategies of British merchants who established policies of regulation and surveillance in order to exploit and eventually appropriate India's manufacture of "true" muslin. By highlighting both Henry's patriarchal privilege and muslin's imperial history, this essay argues for a new understanding of the gender and imperial politics at work in Austen's Northanger Abbey.
In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817), Henry Tilney and Catherine Moreland's first flirtation occasions a lengthy discourse on muslin. Demonstrating a curiously nuanced attention to women's dress, Henry speculates that Catherine will document their meeting in her journal by referring to her "sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings" (15)* The two are soon interrupted by Catherine's chaperone, Mrs. Allen, whose pin has torn a hole in her gown; unfortunately the dress is a "favorite" of Mrs. Allen's, even though, as she confesses, "it cost but nine shillings a yard" (16). Examining Mrs. Allen's damaged muslin, Henry remarks that he would have guessed the fabric's cost "exactly," to which the astonished Mrs. Allen replies, "Do you understand muslins, sir?" (16). Henry does, in fact, "understand muslins" and understands them " particularly well," as he proves to his incredulous female audience (16). He boasts:
I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin. (16)
What does it mean for Austen's hero to "understand muslins," and moreover, to emphasize his penchant for those of the "true Indian" variety? I argue that Henry's preference for Indian...