The Image of the Big House as a Central Motif in The Real Charlotte Ess

The Image of the epic House as a Central Motif in The true(a) CharlotteThe image of the big house has long been a central motif inAnglo-Irish literature. From Maria Edgeworths Castle Rackrent (1800),it has been a descent of inspiration to many writers. One of the primers for the surge in castle rackrents (a generic term employed byCharles Maturin) through the nineteenth and early 20th century, is that manywriters who used the big house as a desktop to their work wereresidents of such houses themselves - writers such as Sommerville andRoss, George Moore and Elizabeth Bowen, were born into the ascendancyand wrote about(predicate) an era and society with which they were familiar.However modern writers, such as mollie Keane and John Banville, havealso instal the romantic qualities of the big house alluring and therefrom have continued to use the era and setting as a backdrop intheir whole kit and caboodle.The big house genre has resulted in such an outpouring of works ofthis type of fiction, that one critic remarkedseems to have flourished in direct likeness to the historicaldemise of the culture it seeks to display. 1The Real Charlotte is set in a limit, which can be described as theIndian Summer of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. An Indian Summer is aperiod of comparative calm before the on set of winter in this slipperiness itis a metaphor describing the life of leisure the Anglo-IrishAscendancy lived with their grand tea leaf parties, hunting, theatricalperformances etc, pursuits and interests which W.B. Yeats associatedwith big house life in generalLife which overflows without ambitious pains. 2However, this period of calm is followed by the onslaught of winter,with the Great Famine and the r... ...l Charlotte. Somerville and Ross were daughters ofthe Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, and as they wrote their smart based ontheir experiences, perhaps it was only natural that some aspects ofThe Real Charlotte depict the decay of Big Houses and the Ascendancyclas s. It is through the development of motion picture and setting,that Somerville and Ross artfully portray the demise of the Big Houseand its inhabitants at the happen of ambitious middle classes, and as aresult of political evolution. For this reason the novel ishistorically accurate in showing the decline of the Big House. Butdespite their historic downfall, the Big Houses of the Anglo-IrishAscendancy have found a new lease of life in literature as the BigHouse genre, making reality what W.B Yeats once said whatever flourish and decline These stones remain their monument and mine. 31