On Narrative Voices In Castle Rackrent

Maria Edgeworth, a renowned Anglo-Irish female novelist,short-story writer and educationalist in the18th century, was asignificant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. Her novels aremainly featured by characterization and local color. Her famous novelCastle Rackrent has been acclaimed as one of the greatest and mostinfluential novels in the history of Irish literature. The novel was publishedin1800, the year of Irish union with Great Britain, and just two years afterthe1798Irish Rebellion; thus it is often regarded as the first historicalnovel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the firstBig House novel and the first saga novel. The novel uncovers thevicissitude of a landlord family and downfall of the family estate,presents the old Irish customs, exposes the cunning middle man and thecorrupted landlordism of Ireland and reveals Edgeworth’s satire to theold Irish gentry.A notable achievement of the novel is the employment of thenarrative technique and construction form. Castle Rackrent is widelyacclaimed as the first novel to use the device of an unreliable narratorand an observer. Edgeworth absent herself from the novel presents anEditor to write the preface, and the text narrated is arranged by thenominal Editor and embedded footnotes and glossary. The ingeniouslyand carefully constructed form creates multiple narrative voices in thetext. Distance among these voices creates the contradictory andartistic effects on the text. Rhetorical device of irony used in the voicescomplicates the text in structure and in meaning while the complicatedstructure enriches the ironic voices.The device of irony employed in the novel weakens the narrativepoints of view, shapes Edgeworth’s moral vision and her ideal relationsof Ireland and England. Edgeworth is a forerunner who employs narrative techniques andnarrative voices that are important artistic achievements in literature.