A Touch of the Anti-Semitism
One of the members of the Rackrent lineage into onto which the title of ownership of the castle falls decides to try to raise money to help improve the situation by marrying a Jewish heiress. Things don’t turn out so well but then again maybe it’s just payback for rampant anti-Semitism. Then again, maybe sometimes anti-Semitism is really just plain ill-informed ignorance expressed through metaphorical misapprehension:
“Mercy upon his honour’s poor soul, thought I; what will become of him and his, and all of us, with his heretic blackamoor at the head of the Castle Rackrent.”
On Wealth and Intelligence
Not just the tenants working the castle are ignorant. Even those who have more money than knowledge of how to deal with it demonstrate a propensity toward being less than intellectually gifted. In this metaphorically rich image of class division made clear, the narrator describes an almost Marxist epiphany:
“So the house was quite bare, and my young master, the moment ever he set foot in it out of his gig, thought all those things must come of themselves, I believe, for he never looked after anything at all, but harum-scarum called for everything as if we were conjurors, or he in a public-house.”
Sir Kit the Oblivious
Even Honest Thady, mere tenancy employee can see that Kit’s desire for the wealth of his Jewish bride is causing him to overlook the obvious. A very strange exchange takes place the first time she sees the “swamp” in front of the castle and must learn what it is known as in English. Kit sees nothing where Thady see doom approaching:
“Now one would have thought this would have been hint enough for my lady…for her to get it by heart, a dozen times; then she must ask me how to spell it, and what was the meaning of it in English—Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while. I verily believed she laid the corner-stone of all her future misfortunes at that very instant; but I said no more, only looked at Sir Kit.”
The Best Rackrent of Them All
The story opens with the death of the title holder to Castle Rackrent which the narrator holds in the highest esteem. Then again, he was just a child at the time. Nostalgia may get the better of him, but he certainly never wavers in his esteem for the old man:
“Sir Patrick Rackrent lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality.”
Comings and Goings
Stripped down to its essentials, the novel is really a detailing of the passage of titleholding accounts from one member of the Rackrent clan to another. At times it almost seems as if there is a constant and never-ending parade of old masters dying and new masters arriving. Some with their brides already along, but many with decision yet to be made on the maidenhood front:
“‘Tis an ill wind that blows nobody no good: the same wind that took the Jew Lady Rackrent over to England brought over the new heir to Castle Rackrent.”
