1. She differs in that there are no actual terrors to drive Catherine Morland's wild imaginings. Unlike a Radcliffe novel, there is no mysterious, half-ruined Gothic castle, there are no huge craggy mountains and there are no evil plots of kidnapping, poisoning or forced starvation in secluded rooms hidden beneath monasteries.
Radcliffe, by the way, didn't think these things happened in England. Her novels are set in far-away romantic lands that are haunted by history. So while it may seem that Austen is mocking the view in Radcliffe, she is merely making the milder case that a heroine living in modern England will not have the experiences Radcliffe describes.
2. Fiction itself, including Radcliffe's is a major contributor to Catherine Morland's imaginings.
3. The sexuality in Austen is direct whereas it is allegorical in Radcliffe. The black veil in Udolpho, for example, is a fairly obvious symbol for female sexuality but a symbol it remains. (Veils and veiling are probably the most common literary device in Radcliffe.) The sexuality in Austen may seem tentative by our standards but sexuality it is. When blood rushes to the cheeks of an Austen heroine as she is helped out of a carriage by some gentleman, it is perfectly clear her blood rushes elsewhere too.
3. The real threat in Austen is never something capable of causing terror. People really do get murdered in Radcliffe. In Austen, the threat is social. Her heroine's risk being ruined in society. What Catherine is threatened by is being cut off from contact with Henry forever because of the prejudice and bad character of the General.
4. Radcliffe's novels are haunted by the past. Beliefs, practices and superstition of the past that threaten our heros and heroines. Catherine risks making a terrible fool of herself because of her infatuation with fiction about these things but there is none of this in her experiences. Jane Austen is thoroughly modern Jane and everything in her stories is very much up-to-date for their time.
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