Weeks before the letter, Catherine had come to accept the fact that she had to release the "sister-like" bond created between the two, the bond that once stood tall on a high pedestal in her heart. With the knowledge and experience she attained, she was not about to allow Isabella the chance to gain power to manipulate her again, destroying a newly-found trust and intimacy with Eleanor Tilney. She finally came to realize "there is nothing people are more deceived in, as the state of their own affections," (Austen, 93), which was found to be related to both Isabell! a's situation, and her own experience as well. A lesson she had to learn in a society where deception and pain were inevitable. She denied Isabella's proposal and by doing so gained much more in dignity, strength and self-awareness.
Although Catherine is now a victor in comparison with Isabella, she has not yet been fully successful in being one with herself, connoting her imagination. The pain inflicted upon Catherine is not easily mended, causing Catherine to create an oblivious escape of reality, this time however, she is unable to distinguish where the illusion ends and the reality begins. When invited by the Tilneys to be a guest at their extensive estate, Northanger Abbey, she is greatly amused at the thought of reenacting one of her favourite Gothic novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe. Before even setting foot near the grounds of the abbey, she is already convinced it will be a place of mystery, adventure and intrigue, a place where she could be the hero of her own story. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and through experience and humiliation Catherine is able to find a little more knowledge behind her true identity. .
The Abbey provides for several accounts of dissatisfaction to Catherine's ideal Gothic setting and her gullibility. An example of this can be illustrated when she was first given her guest bedroom to the Abbey, amongst her snooping, she had discovered an old, dirty, and ironically locked, chest in the corner.