While reading and “tackling” this week’s post there were many confusing things I noticed about Maria Edgeworth’s writing. First, her way of writing/language. I’m not sure if most writers during this time wrote like this, but Maria Edgeworth’s way of writing is very new for me. I feel like I spent most of my time trying to understand what the heck type of message she was trying to get across. I ‘googled’ some of the terms that Colleen suggested, however, it didn’t really help me to understand some of the historical references. Anyways, that’s beside the point, the point is that the language spoken was from a different time and a different place, even though it is in English. The jargon, the “mode of rhetoric”, the historical references, all left me completely twisted. I realized while reading that a language, like anything else, augments and adapts overtime. This style of writing however, made it difficult for me to ‘connect’ to some of the characters.
The characters throughout the story all seem so cryptic to me. I find Maria Edgeworth’s description or rather Thady’s description of each character very ambiguous. I feel like there is some hidden knowledge that I’m missing out on. I think I may be feeling this way because I found Thady’s character to be incredibly absurd for lack of a better term. Thady who refers to himself as “honest Thady” states,
“To look at me, you would hardly think ‘Poor Thady’ was the father of Attorney Quirk he is a high gentlemen, and never minds what poor Thady says, and having better thant fifteen hundred a year, landed estate, looks down upon honest Thady; but I wash my hands of his doings, and as I have lived so will I die, true and loyal to the family.”
I feel that Thady is constantly reminding us throughout the story how humble and modest he is. If these truly were attributes that he held, he wouldn’t constantly remind us of them. However, I think he had a lot of nice things to say about the Rackrent’s. Especially Sir Patrick, which is why I think Sir Patrick became my favorite character.
This leads me to Colleen’s discussion question about how we characterize the various author’s tones throughout the novel. In the novel we find, Thady’s narrative, the editor, and Maria’s perspective as well. It’s hard for me to figure out because I can’t tell whether or not Maria believes Thady to be honest or if that’s what she is leading her readers to believe or if there’s some sort of cryptic message saying not to trust ‘poor, old, honest, Thady’ The editor at one point in the story shares a “cryptic message” to the reader while Thady is talking about Lady Rackrent. Thady tells us that Sir Kit locked Lady Rackrent in a room for seven years. The editor’s footnote states,
“[This part of the history of the Rackrent family can scarcely be thought credible; but in justice to honest Thady, it is hoped the reader will recollect the history of the celebrated Lady Cathcart's conjugal imprisonment. The editor was acquainted with Colonel M'Guire, Lady Cathcart's husband; he has lately seen and questioned the maid-servant who lived with Colonel M'Guire during the time of Lady Cathcart's imprisonment.]”
This footnote caught my attention so I did a bit of research on my own. I discovered from the following BBC website, that Maria Edgeworth based her characters Sir Kit and Lady Rackrent on a set of real events that unfolded partly in Fermanagh and partly in Co. Longford. At the website you can see where Maria Edgeworth got her inspiration for Sir Kit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/fermanagh/lady_cathcart.shtml
So apparently Maria gained inspiration for her characters from real life characters? I found Jason to be very cryptic and quite frankly, not to be trusted. However, maybe I’m just being bias because he was an attorney. In the beginning of the story we get the idea from Thady that Jason may be to full of himself because of the way he “belittled” his own father. I sense some foreshadowing here. Because of this statement I found it hard to take anything Jason did for the Rackrent’s as ‘genuine.’ Maybe I’m reading into this the wrong, did anyone else read into this the same way? Another theme that I noticed from this reading was the treatment of women. Now, I’m not a feminist but the women in this story did not seem to be treated well at all. Sir Kit locked up Lady Rackrent for seven years! The men were constantly disposing of women and gaining new wives. Sir Condy wouldn’t take poor Judy even though she was really the one who had is heart. I wonder if the treatment of women is a point that Maria is trying to bring across…
Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI think you're absolutely right to question the overdetermined nature of "Poor Old Thady." There are definitely quite a few clues in the novel that reveal Thady to not exactly be the bumbling old Irishman that he insists he is. For instance, in the Preface, we're told that Thady is an "illiterate old steward" (62), and yet, on page 75, Thady drops that he "saw the letter [detailing Sir Kit's debts] before ever it was sealed when my son copied it." Similarly, on page 106, it seems that Thady has quite an extensive knowledge of Sir Condy's debts that far surpasses just a general understanding. Are there other places in the novel where Thady seems just a little less "honest" than he lets on?
Also, I like how you bring up the issue of women in the novel. One of my favorite Edgeworth moments occurs on page 135 in the Glossary with the "Raking Pot of Tea" description. _Castle Rackrent_ provides glimpses of what Kevin Whelan calls an "Underground Catholic Gentry," but is there another secret world happening "underground" in this novel, as well? The underground world of women?
Hi again Nicole!
ReplyDeleteIt seems I somehow always end up looking at your blog! It seems like we had similar difficulties reading this text and it’s rambling ways I similarly felt that I spent more time trying to understand what it was I had just read as I did actually doing my reading! I also googled some of those historical references and although they were interesting enough I could not make a clear connection between them and the book itself.
I, like you felt like I was missing something from the story, something that would have tied it all together especially involving the characters. It seemed like there was no transition between the masters of the house and I often times got mixed up.
I was especially impressed by the fact that you took the time to look up a bit of history on Maria Edgeworth and her characters. I was interested to know that she had based her characters off of real people.
Finally, I totally agree with you on Jason. He seemed to just be taking advantage of situations that could be of benefit to himself. It seemed so strange to me that his own father made such descriptions of his own son, this especiialy led me to believe that he was not a trustworthy person.
Overall I struggled a bit with this piece but nonetheless it made me laugh at parts and now especially reading other responses I am seeing things a bit more clearly.
Be well Nicole!
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI recently was thinking about the treatment of women in the novel and found it very interesting that you wrote:
"Another theme that I noticed from this reading was the treatment of women. Now, I’m not a feminist but the women in this story did not seem to be treated well at all. Sir Kit locked up Lady Rackrent for seven years! The men were constantly disposing of women and gaining new wives. Sir Condy wouldn’t take poor Judy even though she was really the one who had is heart. I wonder if the treatment of women is a point that Maria is trying to bring across…"
I was wondering the same thing. I am starting to see that Edgeworth had more than one dominant oppressing discourse to fight against in her novel. Not only is she commenting on Ireland being subject to British colonial discourse but the role that women are put in that society as well.
I found an interesting passage from a book I was looking at (to help me understand colonial discourse more):
"...these women were, at one level, empowered by colonialism due to the superior position they perceived themselves to hold in relation to colonized peoples. Yet, not unlike colonized peoples, women are disempowered due to the inferior position they were placed in in relation to Western men...patriarchal discourses often places Western women in a contradictory position. They occupy a dominant position due to colonialism, but a subordinate place in patriarchy" (McLeod p. 49)
I think that this quote is very similar to Edgeworth's situation. She was in a position of power (being Anglo-Irish and her family being landowning upper class citizens in a British colony) but at the same time faced many restrictions in society as a woman. This probably was another reason why her views are disguised and that much harder to get across at the time she wrote Castle Rackrent.
Work Cited
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Print.