And by that I do not mean that Buffy is yet again confronting the Dark Prince, but that the Gothic is confronting/commentating on Gothic traditions.
As I was reading people's posts about "Storyteller" and the similarities/differences between Andrew and Catherine, I started to think about how, structurally, "Storyteller" and Northanger are oddly similar. I think that the documentary style of Andrew's videotaping functions in a somewhat analogous way to Austen's intrusive narrator. While the narrator explicitly points out Catherine's over-dramatization of real life, the contrast between Andrew's documentary and the regularly filmed parts of the episode point toward the overall dramatization of the show. In this example Austen is satirizing the Gothic novel as a genre while Whedon and the other writers are Buffy are self-satirizing a bit, the effect is quite similar. In "Storyteller" we see the behind-the-scenes dullness of Buffy's speeches and we also see things like Spike attempting to be scary for the camera. Small things like Willow yawning during Buffy's speech and the household running out of cereal highlight that a normal episode, and even the non-documentary style clips from this episode, do not represent day-to-day life. This same type of confrontation happens in Northanger Abbey when the narrator describes Catherine as a heroine and points out all of her flaws in that regard, such as having a live mother and average looks. The clincher for me is how both Andrew and Catherine realize that their lives are not stories and have to confront this and deal with the consequences. (Ironically, of course, both their lives are in fact stories...) Upshot is that both "Storyteller" and Northanger Abbey end up satirizing the Gothic a bit by pointing out that no matter how hard they try (or don't, as the case may be), Gothic stories will never actually be real life. But I'd say they do a pretty good job representing it in an albeit overblown metaphor-y type way.
I like the connection you drew between Andrew and Northanger's narrator. Andrew's always throwing in his little descriptions (the first time I saw the Buffy/Spike interaction where Spike has his shirt off I laughed for about ten minutes and had to pause the episode until I calmed down), just like Northanger's narrator always describes the behaviors of the characters and such. Another thing I noted about Andrew's narration and that of others in our readings is all the exaggeration. Andrew's got the whole Buffy/Spike thing, then Anya has her silly moment, and as you mentioned Spike tries to exaggerate his role as the misunderstood dramatic type. There's similar exaggeration in "Transformation", for example, because for all Guido assures us that Juliet is absolute perfection and is the source of all light or whatever nonsense he spouts, I'm sure she's just a pretty girl, like any of the other pretty girls we at times encounter.
ReplyDelete