Does Catherine? I don't get the idea from these early chapters that Catherine wants to be anything but what she is. She appears eager to enjoy herself, make appropriate friends, behave properly and safely. I don't get any sense of her lamenting her life's lack of sensationalism. At least at this point she reminds me of my daughter, who loves to watch horror movies but has no intention of being a character in one.

I think JA is poking fun at readers who would demand that her work would be a gothic novel in the formulaic sense. At every step of the way so far she is saying that it is not one.