THE BIG HOUSE TROPE:

FROM THE ANGLO-IRISH NOVEL TO THE SCREEN

Abstract

The theme of the ‘Protestant manor’ is a characteristic topos in Anglo-Irish
literature, where representations of this metaphorical space become symbolic of the
culture of the Protestant colonial elite, which dominated the political, economic and
social scene in Ireland from the seventeenth century until the early twentieth
century, when the series of events that led to the foundation of the Irish Free State
and the transformations produced in the political, social and economic context
undermined the privileged position of this group. The article seeks to delineate the
characteristic tropes of this theme by analysing three seminal texts in the Protestant
Manor novel tradition, namely Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, Sommerville
and Ross's The Real Charlotte and Eizabeth. Bowen. The final case study shifts the
focus to a contemporary text, represented by Irish director Neil Jordan's film High
Spirits, which reconfigures this imagistic space through parody and simulacra,
revising the cultural conventions of this theme